Greenist Nonsense

Fighting Over the Water Bottle

We have long suspected that whenever a Greenie's skin is scratched, underneath one finds a luddite.  Greenists have a hatred of economic development and the useful exploitation of earth's rich resources.  Moreover, most Greenists are wedded to the neo-platonic idea that the real is the non-tangible, the ethereal, the realm of the Idea.  

In a word, Greenists are fundamentally uncomfortable with human beings and sentient animal life.  Take humans.  They drink pure clean water, and express it as toxic polluted water, urine.  They eat natural greens and express them as toxic malodorous waste.

Starting with this cluster of misanthropic ideas, the Greenists have very little to contribute to political discourse or social organisation that is helpful and positive.  Moreover add to this mess of pottage a hatred of other people's property and wealth, along with a deep loyalty to Marxist ideologies, and one reluctantly concludes that there is little positive contribution a Greenist can make to the body politic.  As one cynic observed, Greenists are so anti-human the best they could make to society would be to live out their ideology in a consistent way by breathing their last.  On their own terms they could "help save the planet" by suicide.

The latest brouhaha is over bottled water.  Actually, it's not a brouhaha over bottled water: its anger at some people making a profit out of selling water.
 But that's a little too crass for public consumption, pun intended, so the Greenists have been busy telling us that we are putting our water resources at risk by bottling them up and selling them for dirty profits, offshore.
This has led to the Minister of the Environment putting out a press release.

Bottled water concerns misplacedThursday, 21 April 2016, 4:46 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Government
Hon Dr Nick Smith

Minister for the Environment 21 April 2016 Media Statement

The call from opposition parties for a moratorium or a new tax on consents for bottled water plants is typically uninformed and scientifically unsound in respect of dealing with the challenges New Zealand has in freshwater management, says Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith.

“New Zealand has five-hundred trillion litres of fresh water each year flowing through our lakes, rivers, and aquifers, and we extract only two percent of that for human purposes. Ten trillion litres are extracted, made up of six trillion for irrigation, two trillion for town water supplies, and two trillion for industries. The total water extracted for bottled water is only 0.004 per cent of the resource. The suggestion by the Greens of a moratorium on bottled drinking water takes is about as sensible as pretending you could solve Auckland’s traffic congestion by banning bikes. The New Zealand First proposal for a special tax would be like putting a charge on bikes but ignoring trucks, cars and buses and pretending that it would help traffic management,” Dr Smith says.

The issue of keeping our water clean, and the pollution of our waterways to a minimum, however, is important.  It is a fundamental duty to care for, and husband the creation.  It is a duty given to us by our Creator.  The Minister claims the Government is responding rationally to these duties and challenges:

“It is wrong to target the bottled water industry in the broader debate about improving the system by which water is allocated and reducing the pollution of our rivers, lakes and aquifers. New Zealand’s water shortages are in quite distinct areas and at particular times of the year. The Government’s latest proposals for improving freshwater management contained in the Next Steps for Freshwater discussion document represent a far more rational response. The introduction of Technical Efficiency Standards for all water users will have far greater benefits for the sustainability of water use than banning bottled water.

It turns out that, as is often the case, Greenist concerns have far more heat than light.  The objection to a business bottling up water and selling it for a profit overseas has more to do with a deep antipathy towards profit making, rather than concern for the environment.

“There is also a contradiction by opposition parties calling for a more diverse range of export industries than dairying but then wanting to prohibit the export of bottled water. Each litre of milk takes about 400 litres of freshwater to produce and if the export market is prepared to pay a good price for bottled water, it may be a more efficient and productive use of the resource. It would also be difficult to justify a charge on bottled water but not on a bottled product made with minimal additives of juice concentrate or other similar bottled drinking products.

“There is no case for the bottled water industry to be treated any differently from the thousands of other water users. The Government is tightening the regulation of freshwater but in a consistent approach that does not target one industry on the basis of misinformation and politics.”

Mmmm.  All that Lemon and Paeroa, that kiwi beer, that wine, that milk exported offshore.  There goes our precious water.  But, let's not be too hard on our resident Greenists.  To require them to be rationally consistent would be an unreasonable step too far.