Kāpiti Coast residents demand council throw out report on sea level rise

There are a few parts that I found interesting

Tanya Lees from the group Kāpiti CALM (Calm Alarming Law Madness) said people were worried insurance companies would use the report as an excuse to refuse to cover their homes.

Sorry Tanya, the insurance companies don't need a publicly funded report. They are already consulting with (the same) experts, they will set their rates as they see fit.

Also from Tanya

There are a lot of people, a lot of experts, who do not agree with this,

Who are these experts? People yes, because they have an emotional and financial investment, but experts...not very likely.

This is a strange way to think

Salima Padamsey from Coastal Ratepayers United said the panel's report should be taken as an advisory - nothing more.

"Council never vested the advisory committee with any statutory authority under the Resource Management Act.

"The committee's mandate did not encompass providing expert perspectives on policy matters.

When has an advisory committee ever been vested with powers, the clue is in the name...they are to advise. That last bit about "providing expert perspective" is so strange. One would hope that; when spending public money; only expert opinion would be sought, what is the other option? Just some random off the street?

I assume by this he means the stupid many lead the sane few?

And I think that the biggest learning for this council coming out of this process is how we need to do democracy better."

The foolish build their house upon the sand. And the storm came and the winds lashed against the house and the water lapped against its foundation, and the house fell; its collapse was very great.

“When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England the Kāpiti Coast.”

I guess one of the central arguments (that we don't actually need to prepare for the worst case scenario) isn't wrong but we really don't know what to expect when this all goes to shit. Are they really hoping they can put their head in the sand doing the bare minimum and then go to the courts when it wasn't enough?

Personally, I've no confidence that we've accurately mapped the worst case scenario at all - I fear it'll be much worse than we imagine (but I'm that far from starting a suicide cult, so don't take my advice! )

I feel stupider just having read that.

"Just Stop The Madness".