Gerry really cares for the Eaarth and is trying to protect it. So rather than using an AK47 to rid the Eaarth of the nasty malignant thingies (a la Rambo) he is cunningly helping it raise its temperature to the point that the malignant thingies can not possibly continue to spread. They may not actually be wiped out, but it is certain that at least their communities will be seriously disrupted and their numbers capped if not considerably reduced.

Unfortunately for Gerry, this may also create much discomfiture for his progeny (not to mention personal discomfort from increased temperatures). But hey, a man has to do what a man has to do!

I say go Gerry!
Ma hero!

_Contra_ the draft strategy, NZ’s known fossil fuel resources are, by world standards, small, dispersed, poor quality, and costly. Why should the Honourable Gerry expect the unknown resources in our exclusive economic zone to be any different? Hoping is no basis for a strategy.

My guess is that the Hon. Gerry is only minimally numerate and completely unacquainted with mineral geology. The differences between resource in place, technically recoverable resource (reserve base), and economically recoverable resource (reserves) are likely to be lost on him, so he is going to be disappointed even if the lotto ticket is a winner. The new “billion-barrel” oil field will turn out to yield fewer than 100 million barrels of oil, grudgingly, over the course of ten or twelve years, rather than instantly. Useful on the margin, but not the centrepiece of a strategy. Any gas found will go into a market that will be in a prolonged slump by the time it can be produced. Every country and its dog is bringing gas on line as fast as it can.

The Honourable Gerry seems to have a shaky grasp of engineering realities as well. No amount of wishing for “carbon capture and storage” will ever make it work beyond the pilot stage. This lotto ticket is a loser. Electric vehicles are likely to underwhelm, too, in an economy where the average age of vehicles is high and increasing. Scratch that ticket.

The insulation retrofit programme is a bright spot in the strategy, but whose idea was that, again?

As for mining and burning lignite: it ought to be considered a crime against humanity.