> Americans have a “bigger is better� fixation.

Certainly the American car market bears that out. But I’d be interested to know if it also means that they don’t have the fetish for smaller and smaller cellphones that New Zealanders seem to have (though I suppose what we tend to go for is smaller in size but bigger in features).

Personally, I have a bit of a fixation about small cars. I look at a Ford Ka or a Fiat Bambina, and marvel that they managed to fit all the bits of a car into such a small space.

Next thing you’ll be telling me that New Zealand is about as significant as New Mexico

She laughed because its s stupid statistic and your claim that it isn’t only reforces my point that new zealanders see themselves as this important country on the world stage.

Oh I just showed her your post now she’s laughing even louder so am i. Sorry about that cause I know you actually believe your self which is quite scary.

We aren’t saying we shouldn’t reduce C02 emissions what we are saying is we shouldn’t get involved in these silly schemes, if you are going to reduce C02 emissions then you need to do it for real.

Also what is the green party going to do about goods made overseas and shipped into NZ. Lets imagine I as a local New Zealander create a product which has a much smaller carbon footprint. What protection do I recieve from the New Zealand government to stop the Chinese from shiping the same good into New Zealand with a super high carbon footprint. Either the New Zealand government will need to give me a subsidy or they will need to impose a tarif on the chinese product. Good luck with that samiuela the China free trade agreenment doesn’t allow it

So if we can’t impose a carbon tarif on imports then all that will happen is New Zealand business will not be able to compete with overseas business and they will go out of business.

You need to take the blinkers off and focus on the bigger picture so before we try and build policy to handle C02 emissions we need to revisit every free trade agreement and our involvenment in WTO. Any effort needs to come from the WTO as the WTO is the only organisation that can do anything since the only real way to handle this is to apply a carbon tarif on all goods which reflects the good’s carbon footprint, only the WTO organisation can do this. I haven’t even heard you talk about this elephant in the room.

Oh and btw I am going to vote green but I guess you want me to stay home not that it matters as I vote from overseas so I’ll be mailing my voting papers from home anyway.

You are partly correct that nations are a fundamental unit which human society operates on. However, it is incorrect to say that CO2 reduction should be focused on nations alone. Here is an example why not: China is a major CO2 emitter, yet it is also the most populous nation in the world. China’s per capita emissions are much lower than New Zealand’s. Why should a Chinese person have to suffer cutbacks when someone in NZ doesn’t?

All the people here who say NZ is insignificant … you are mostly correct. But using that same logic, why do you bother to vote? After all, your individual vote is insignificant, and won’t determine which party forms the next government.

So I put this challenge to all you who are arguing along the lines that NZ shouldn’t do anything to reduce its CO2 emissions, because it is insignificant: this election, stay at home and don’t vote, after all, your vote won’t count.

Notably, Sweden has committed to shutting down all of its nuclear power plants by 2010, though there are some issues surrounding that. Only ONE minor political party wants to build new ones!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out_in_Sweden

So the Greens need to go for the lot or not support it. If Helen is serious about it she will have to concede - if she isn’t, there is no money and it will fail anyway, then the Greens will have to let it die.

National is out to increase the profit margins of its cronie puppet masters in the business round table and all their sham NZ institutes. New Zealanders rate as pawns and serfs to them.