Monday, March 23, 2009: Surveying my land

How many times do I have to tell you, Herald? Reporting the results is not a news story, let alone a front-page story - even if the results show that most people are absolute mentalists. After all, I already knew that. The headline pun is bad enough - "NZ going cooler on warming - survey". (Perhaps it's being caused by egg-chaser Stacey Jones in the 'article' to the left - "He's back, and he's hot." Nice Oxford comma, by the way.)

So yes - Herald, don't pretend that surveys are news. But I reserve the right to complain about the statistics themselves, as well. I know that the survey wasn't commissioned or conducted by the Herald, but I still choose to blame them for the results because, if people don't care about the potential of 'climate change', aka massive, irreversible ecological disaster, it can largely be attributed to the reporting of the media: instead of having a weekly half-page in the middle of the paper where a bourgeois talks about composting her brioche, they could have a massive headline saying "HOLY SHIT" across the top of the front page every day. They could appeal to stupid-people demographics across the political spectrum by running pictures (artists' impressions, naturally) both of polar bear cubs melting and boatloads of Bangladeshi refugees from flooding turning up on our shores and stealing our jobs. Now, where was I...

That's right, survey results:

• 87 per cent of people "thought New Zealand should take steps to manage climate change 'very soon' or 'in coming years'." That's nice. Coming years. Presumably the rest thought we should wait until we are underwater, then build a time machine and go back and fix it.
• Oddly enough after that statistic, 34 per cent of people in the same survey thought New Zealand were doing enough to manage climate change. Wait, remind me what we're doing again? I believe John Key altered his Hummer to run on biofuels.
• "Climate change was ranked 6th on a list of problems that could effect people and their families," behind fuel prices, the recession and being stabbed to death by an immigrant. Funnily enough, this corresponds exactly with the frequency of front page stories in the New Zealand Herald.*

*Disclaimer: May not exactly correspond.