David Cunliffe gave a major speech yesterday, alongside Labour’s deputy leader Grant Robertson (ensuring it is seen as a party sanctioned speech).

THE DOLPHIN AND THE DOLE QUEUE
by David Cunliffe on Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 6:19pm ·

Environment meeting with David Cunliffe and Grant Robertson, Titirangi, 23 June 2012

It’s quite lengthy and makes many good points. Oddly it’s not on the Labour website but the speech has been posted at The Standard. Well worth a read.

But here I’ll jump to ther conclusion.

CONCLUSION

Everybody loves to hate politicians. Yet, we politicians are here because people voted for us. Politicians tend to do what’s easiest for them and their careers. Although there are a few of us that really care, we can’t force our policies onto unwilling voters.

So, I think that the big changes in the world; the ones that might just save us, are going to be driven by ordinary people like you.

But a word of warning: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It’s not good enough to have ideals. It’s not good enough to weep over the state of our nation’s waterways and land. It’s not good enough just to bemoan climate change and inequality.

In between our dream world and our present world, there’s a minefield of confusion, denial and dishonesty, of myths blue and green.

Let’s not get side-tracked by the wonderful fantasy that we can continue living a 1950s American Dream lifestyle. Nor be deterred from harnessing every bit of Kiwi ingenuity, every good idea, for a more resilient and sustainable future.

I would love to say that’s all we need to do, but it’s not. We need to act on a personal level, a local level, a national level and, finally, a global level.

On a personal level, we need to act in an aware, caring and responsible way. We need to recycle, we need to buy goods from ethical sources, and we need to teach our children the value of doing more with less.

On a local level, we need to support city councils and interest groups that act responsibly.

On a political level, we need to support parties that acknowledge the depth of the problem and are prepared to do something about it. We can’t just close down every dairy farm. We can’t just ban cars and hope that someone builds a railway.

In the meantime, every bottle you recycle, every heater you turn off, every vote that you cast, is one small drop. And, never forget, an ocean is made up of nothing more than small drops. And an ocean is a powerful force of nature.

And, finally never let us forget, that there are seven billion people on this small planet. Like drop in the ocean, we’re all this together. Thank you.

I agree with this – it is as much up to us, the ordinary people, as it is our politicians. We can’t just expect our politicians to fix everything while we carry on wasting and polluting.

We, that’s you and I, all of us, need to start thinking sustainability, and thinking survivability. And we need to change a lot.