COMMENT: 

A very welcome note of realism appears to have landed at the doorstep of the second "Schools for Climate Change" protest today. It will be, I am reading from reports around various parts of the country, more low key than last time.

Of course, we have no real idea of how low or high key last time might have been, given it got no coverage, given it happened March 15, the day of the Christchurch attack.

But schools are backing away from their initial support which is no bad thing. Instead of a lot of yelling and screaming with placards, we are apparently to see more beach cleanups and trees planted. And that is, of course, how it should be.

If we have learned nothing out of the Australian elections, it's that the mad rabble that’s been allowed to litter our news services with their endless noise, barking, threats, protests and claims of death, destruction, and calamity, do not in any significant way represent the vast majority of us.

And that includes entitled kids bunking off and pretending they're fixing a climate issue. It's bad enough they have deluded adults like the Nelson and Christchurch councils declaring climate emergencies. A move just about as useless, pointless, and wasteful as taking a day off school to chant with a large bit of cardboard painted with virtue signalling slogans.

The whole climate debate has become farcical, which is not to say it isn't an issue, and it's not to say we might like to genuinely do something. But it's been hijacked and all we've ended up with is hate-filled rhetoric pedalled by extremists and professional stirrers. Oh, and the banning of plastic bags at supermarkets.

It has dissolved into a token, half baked, tip your hat exercise, with a touch of corporate sponsorship designed to make us feel good, and nothing more.

I was reminded of this reality when I saw on the news a shot of a bunch of NCEA exams being handed out in a school hall the day the government announced their NCEA review. Every exam, and think about how hundreds of thousands of exams there are. Every kid in year 11, 12, and 13 has up to seven subjects each, so there are hundreds of thousands of exams are handed out.

And they're all encased in what? Plastic bags. Has the irony not smacked a single one of the climate protesters right between the eyes?

Also in the news, poor old Environment Minister Eugenie Sage standing in front of piles of plastic that isn't, hasn’t, can't be, and never was recycled. The con was that we shipped it all off to China, thinking they actually recycled it.

We are fooling ourselves. It’s a joke. We have zero carbon targets that are never met, never will be met. Middle Australia worked it out, hopefully, we will too.

And it starts with the kids today. Yes, plant a tree, clean a beach, but spare me the insufferable time wasting chanting, designed to do no more than produce a surge of self-importance.