Wise Response Society says the Government’s infrastructure planning inquiry, post-cyclone Gabrielle, must heed limits to growth and planetary-boundary overshoot.

“Prime Minister Hipkins correctly identifies deficiencies in past infrastructure decisions,” said Wise Response spokesperson Prof. Thomas Neitzert. “He also correctly notes the need for resilience. This, however, is not just a matter of adapting to a changing climate; multiple other issues are occurring concurrently and must be taken into account”.

He said we need to break away from the post-event ‘repair and rebuild’ cycle.

Neitzert urges Government to factor-in the inevitable reduction in global supply of both materials and energy.

“The best, most concentrated materials are always extracted first; more and more global citizens are competing for dwindling stocks of materials, of ever lower quality. The same applies to energy; the best has been mined and burnt. And even if there are still resources in the ground, most of it should be left there because of the impact on the environment and biodiversity we are currently observing.”

He said much hype obscures the simple fact that renewable energy – although it is our inevitable destiny – will never pack the convenient punch that million years of fossilised sunlight did.

“Therefore, at all levels of planning and in all things, we must see the bigger picture. This is the ideal time to foster systems science; we need to simultaneously factor depletion, and indeed human overshoot, into decisions which will impact our children, and theirs.”

He said as Rod Oram in his latest Newsroom article has pointed out – and as we are beginning to realise – short-termism must end.

Deputy Chair and Climate Scientist Dr Jim Salinger says “The concept of ‘rebuilding’, while an understandable instinct, needs to be challenged. Mitigation, and especially smart climate adaptation, both are required and don’t contradict each other. During redesign we have the chance to come up with urban plans which are adapted to future climate events and take a zero carbon future into account. In the short term, modular units manufactured to the passive house standard should be provided to the affected regions and are flexible for changing needs.”

“Roading infrastructure must be placed in areas that don’t get continually flooded. Areas unsuitable for development, such as floodplains and those where landslips occur, have to be avoided.”

Wise Response is a broad coalition of academics, engineers, lawyers, artists, and sportspeople who are calling on New Zealand’s Parliament to comprehensively assess imminent risks to New Zealand as demand for growth exceeds Earth’s physical limits and to plan for a wellbeing future.

Prof. emer. Thomas Neitzert

Secretary, Wise Response Society

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