The Woman Who Can’t Shut Up About the Future

New Zealand is on the verge of a very different future that could see refugees from water and food wars flock to this country en mass says Auckland woman Linda Shaw, whose passionate concern over the issue has seen her radically transform her life.

Colleges and friends call the former corporate executive `the woman who can’t shut up about the future’.

So worried is Linda about the shortening time frame of the implications of global warming, she has now thrown over her corporate management roles to travel New Zealand holding workshops and seminars to alert others.

Though Linda says she hates to dwell on the doom and gloom aspect, her years of research have convinced her New Zealand could be a very different place by 2017.

By then she thinks this country could be facing:

“What I’ve learned from years of reading and investigation has burned into my soul,” says Linda. “If we do not start making some changes, we are going to be in a very serious situation. We are now approaching the end of natural tolerance. The world will give us no more time. We are waking up to that - but far too slowly.”

Linda - who has worked in a variety of management roles including for Zespri and the Auckland Zoo - says simply thinking about sustainability is not going to be enough.

“We need to go faster and further than that. We need to be restorative: having taken so much, we now need to give back to nature. Our survival as a species depends on a new kind of thinking.”

Just last week, Australian Senator Bill Heffernan echoed a similar doomsday scenario for his country, fearing Australia could be particularly vulnerable from refugees fleeing water shortages and land loss from climate change.

Linda’s message talks about mecology (www.mecology.com) the idea that everyone needs to think about themselves as `a global movement of one’ and make constant and committed different decisions about how they live.

“The world has developed a form of corporate feudalism which has led to the emergence of a radical new species – the impersonal global corporation, the true dividends of which are poverty, sweatshops, greed and full frontal climate assault,” says Linda.

“There is nothing wrong with being rich, but everything wrong when 80 per cent of people are poor. Globalisation is not working for the planet and a large number of living beings.

“We only have a very small window left where we might be able to turn things around. We’ve heard from experts all over the world that we might only have 15 years left to change things, or ten years, or eight years. I’m optimistic; I think we only have five years left.

“We can’t wait for governments or God to fix the problem. But my message to people is there is a huge amount we can do personally to help make a better future.

“I feel the pressure of what is coming,” says Linda, “and that’s why I’m taking this financial risk, leaving work, leaving certainty behind in order to be committed to help others undertake the mind shift needed so our future won’t be one of worst case scenario.”

Would you like to interview Linda? Need more information or a photo? Please contact Kimberley Paterson at Soul PR on 09 4244218 or kimberley@soulpr.com