To: Southland District Council P O Box Invercargill
[email protected] From: Rosemary Penwarden C/- Counter Mail Blueskin Store 12 Orokonui Road Waitati Otago 03 4822831
[email protected] 25 February 2013 To Whom it May Concern Submission re Proposed Southland District Plan I do wish to be heard in respect of this submission. Introduction I grew up in rural New Zealand (North Island West Coast) and am a long-time resident of Otago, just up the road from Southland. In the past two years I have visited Southland many times, made new friends, seen much of the country and learned in detail about the proposed lignite developments in the Mataura valley. First and foremost I am a concerned citizen of this beautiful home of ours, planet Earth. I am a mother and grandmother, and carry my parental responsibility seriously. We do not have the right to pass on to our children a world in a state of climate chaos, economic and environmental disaster. For the world‟s climate to remain liveable, we must rapidly reduce the current level of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The major source of such emissions is the burning of fossil fuels, and of these, coal is the most plentiful. Scientists have made it clear that coal must be phased out to give us any hope of avoiding runaway climate change. Lignite, as the dirtiest form of coal, must stay in the ground. Burning coal also contributes to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is not an effect of climate change. It is related to a different receiving environment (seawater) and a different physical process (alteration of the chemical composition of the ocean rather than altering the heat trapping capacity of the atmosphere).