A VOICE THAT SO DESERVES TO BE HEARD

If you read my recent blog “50 Shades of Waste” you may recall my “unlikely new hero”, Johnny Baxter (who drove a Volvo truck an incredible 10% more efficiently than the best of the rest in the world). Well in following Johnny’s story I’ve also wound up as an unlikely follower of Dave McCoid, editor of New Zealand Trucking Magazine.

Dave doesn’t mince his words, but he doesn’t get stuck on ideology either. I probably spend more time than him trying to grasp climate change from every angle, but I wish I had Dave’s flair for expressing the issues. And he addresses the big environmental stuff much more often than you’d expect.

So while my writing tends to be a seasoning of right brain on a staple course of left, Dave’s comes out as pure right brain - though it’s not hard to read between his lively lines and realise there's much more scholarship in the background than his flamboyant style lets on.

I’m going let Dave’s writing speak for itself - it would be dumb not to. So here are a few tasty morsels from his latest serving: the weekly editorial that came in today (Friday 13th no less – as good a date as he’ll find to hit us between the eyes with something momentous). 

And as you read it, remember these are from the editorial of a trucking magazine, My guess is it shows up big time the mags of us planners, accountants, architects, lawyers …

I take my hat off to you, Dave - your voice deserves to be heard far and wide. Kia kaha. We need you. (Check in at NZ Trucking Magazine support@nztrucking.co.nz if you want a weekly stir-up from Dave!)

"Any volunteers? I thought not.

The youth and newborn babies in today’s first world societies will live an amazing life…they’ll be among the most privileged generation ever to have lived…. By the end of their lives however, they may well be seen as those who sacrificed on a scale normally reserved for war generations. The concept of getting on a plane for a mere holiday in Bali, to see Mickey Mouse, or the Eiffel Tower, may be as foreign by the end of their time as the thought of a weekend trip to Mars is for us now.

...

It’s likely as they age they’ll look back on sprawling, extravagant houses … with the same disdain we view medieval sanitation. We look back on the Vandals and Huns…will they see us as the Gluttons?

...

 What a significant extension of the planet’s life actually means is today’s youth at death will barely comprehend liberties and the waste of the world into which they were born. It’s that simple. They have less than a generation now to achieve that. Beyond that it’s a case of hoping the creationists get to say ‘I told you so. But then we’ll have to explain why we wrecked it, and who’s going to volunteer for that one? "