Spare Room Be our guest…

By Kirk MacGibbon

I have the very great pleasure of owning a BMW 850. It’s getting on a bit now, 1991, and starting to show a few signs of wear and tear, of having taken a few knocks in life – a bit like its owner I guess – but it is a truly beautiful, classic car.

To the uninitiated these cars sold, new, for around $270,000. Doug Myers had one. It was BMW’s answer to Ferrari and Porsche, but I can only assume they somehow misinterpreted the question being asked, because at around 4000lbs the five litre V12 engine takes a very pedestrian 6.8 seconds to get from 0-100km/hr.

Still, getting from 100-160km/hr is an altogether different story and represents a clear and present danger to any driver’s licence. I can say this because my own definitely seems to now prefer the company of certain government officials at Land Transport to the lodgings provided in my wallet.

In admitting to ownership of such a car I’m not showing off, or big-noting. I’m most certainly not going to go out and build a monument in homage to the evil [minor] god that is Related-party Lending as a certain disgraced property developer insists on doing.

No. I’m simply fronting up and providing a disclaimer in full cognizance of the contradiction explicit in choosing to drive this particular car in preference to, say, that smug little prick most of us know as a Toyota Prius, while also accepting the phenomenon that is global warming.

Yissiree. It’s just that I feel it is only fair to let all you twats attempting to gain absolution from any ongoing personal responsibility for the sad state of affairs we in the developed world have brought about, that you’re farting in the wind. You might well have reduced your pathetic fuel bill – or your carbon footprint as the jargon goes – but you’re farting into the proverbial. It’s all for nowt. I’m using it all. My car is the China of the highway, gobbling up all the ‘saved’ petrol and pumping out greenhouse gases at an ear-splitting, budget-busting, FTW-ing 7600 RPM.

Now that the farce that is Copenhagen is over we can all stop giving any further thought to the boffins’ turgid papers on the state of the weather – could there be a more boring subject? – and give no more thought to the fact that we humans – in the developed world – have fucked up the planet. A few Tuvaluans (and many more Bangladeshis) bobbing past the front window will not make any difference. Like the icebergs they’re unlikely to darken our doorsteps, thank god.

We can also dismiss those complete knobs who continue to insist that changing weather patterns, shifting ocean currents, rising sea levels and disappearing glaciers are not being caused by ongoing human activity as delusional, economists , or members of the National party. Combine all three and the result is a perfect storm. In a teacup.

Which is not a bad thing to have in hand, when kicking back and experiencing the beauty and hedonism of Copenhagen. I have enjoyed the delights of Copenhagen first hand: In the company of a beautiful woman and staying at the uber-cool Sankt Petri overlooking the medieval central city district we partied like rock stars. We danced and cavorted in gay abandon, marvelled at the blending of old and new, and noted the quiet elegance and sentinel-like presence of the dozens of wind turbines encircling the port and harbour (no nimby whiner Luddites there).

It’s cold there at this time of the year, which may have been the first mistake made by whoever thought it would ever work to organise such an important conference in Denmark. I mean it’s got to be hard to focus on the fact that a two degree rise in average temperatures could spell the end of Tuvalu when in Copenhagen it would mean the snow got a chance to melt.

So, failure all round. Even if John Key has now come to the conclusion that it was indeed, worth him going. Boy, pity the journalists who had to follow our PM around and write about what he was up to. I think the best bet would have been to retire to the little bastion of peace that is Christiana. A relic of the 60s hippy culture, now reborn as a tourist attraction, Christiana is a ‘suburb’ of Copenhagen that offers similar activities to Amsterdam and an equal attitude of benevolence by the local constabulary. A brief visit would at least enable one to legitimately giggle at the futility of the recent exercise, while puffing up a storm of greenhouse gases, and then leaving in a genuinely confused state. Just like most of the delegates to the conference.

The whole issue of global warming is as tiresome as it is inevitable. And the split between the developing and developed world just as yawn-inducing. I mean, on a smaller scale the whole debate reminds of the tedious baby boomer generation in this country: Don’t do as I do; Do as I say.

In other words we’ve had the dream run and its been great, but the party’s over and someone else is expected to pay. The developed world has for decades (actually its centuries but who’s counting?) raped and looted the developing world of its resources and riches to enjoy standards of living that most of the world could only dream about. Now we bicker over half a degree of warming? I’ve had enough of the hypocrisy. If China, India and Brazil want to continue down the path they’re on, and let’s face it, they pretty much have to in order to prevent revolution, civil war and carnage, then good luck to them. I’ll do the same.

At least little old New Zealand wasn’t conspicuous sitting on the fence. Will Key and this Government ever actually take a stand on anything of significance? The old adage about a week being a long time in politics doesn’t work anymore for this National government. They make a week look positively glacial in speed.

In fact, with knee-jerk reactions being the order of the day, its hard to tell whether we’ve got a government, or a troupe of Morris dancers leading us these days. Oh well, maybe I’ll go for a drive. Forget about the disappointments of today. Maybe Tuvalu will be better…