I’m a Futurist from way back. The DVD-Book phenomenon called ‘The Secret’ hit town in 2006. In 2000, I was tentatively involved with a projected speaking Tour with three other go-getter Kiwis. I had outlined a book, about a ‘code of accomplishment’.

The book would give us credibility and give us a product for the lucky folks who attended our seminars. Alas, bureaucracy at their end eventually sank the project. People love coming here to tell us how to ‘suck eggs’, but they protect ‘their turf’ with almost nuclear ferocity.

I called the book… ‘The Secret’. Sadly I did not copyright the name when we abandoned the tour. Rhonda Byrne would have had to call her book… sumthin’ else. A colleague and I created the ‘Buddy Refereeing’ system for Touch Football, in the 1980s. Touch Football is derived from Rugby League.

Other countries pooh-poohed our system and forced us to adopt the idiot alternative, with referees running on and off. But, along came 2009 and the NRL adopted a ‘Buddy Refereeing’ system. Maybe the twits who insisted on the ‘funny-runny’ system, may learn something from that. But, I doubt it…

These two examples will confirm that yesterday we used tomorrow to help today. Call me a skeptic, but let me take you back to the first week of October, when heavy snow (goodness, did I say ‘heavy snow’) trapped some 200 vehicles on State Highway Five and the Napier-Taupo Road.

Did I miss something, or was it supposed to be the second month of SPRING around here! Now for something equally interesting. In mid-October, in a rare move, Al Gore received half a dozen questions from journalists, at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

It included a question from Irish filmmaker Phelim McAleer, who asked Gore to address nine errors in his film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which were identified by a British court in 2007. Gore replied that the court ruled in favour of showing his film in British schools.  As McAleer persisted in getting his question answered…

… his microphone was cut orf. Tsk. Tsk. There is growing unease from people with good credentials, that the much-touted Copenhagen U.N. Climate Change Conference, is a talk-fest that will result in countries like New Zealand being ‘punished’ for agricultural and tourism (travel footprint) sins.

Can you believe that we are actually the sixth worst eco-footprint ‘offender’ in the world. Only the UAE, the USA, Kuwait,  Denmark and Australia, are worser. Oops. Did we mention Denmark, as in Copenhagen as in Denmark? Interesting. This is according to some busybodies in Switzerland…

So,. apparently, we have been telling porkies about our mean and green image. Where do these twits dwell? Foofooland? We Kiwis travel widely. I bet we can name at least 20 countries in five minutes that are grubby, smokey, smelly, unhygienic and desolate. It’s a case of worldwide ‘Kiwi-envy’.

We have Utopia. They don’t. The government is very likely to go to Copenhagen and, amidst a humble mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, promise to do some dumb things, so that we can be ‘loved’ again. You read this first in Rural Living, the paper for a balanced future. May it ‘freeze over’ in Copenhagen!

Townies will be too busy not caring. So, country folk… you will have to do it again. Agriculture and Tourism, our best income thingies, are both Rurals. Go sic ‘em!

Do you have the energy to attend the unique personal growth and business dynamics experience, The X-SELL Seminar? Do you? E-thingie me for the good oil at duitdammit@xtra.co.nz Cheers.

Bill Potter is a ChangeOvator, with THE DU IT GROUP.  He is an author, international speaker and strategist.  duitdammit@xtra.co.nz.