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Landslide & climate, and the link between knowing and doing
a reflection by Silvia Purdie, 26 January 2026
Our nation is reeling from the deaths of 8 people in landslides in Tauranga. This connects with me all too keenly. In 1965 my father Ern Crane and his family were buried in mud in a landslide in Muriwai. He and his daughter Christine were, incredibly, dug out and survived. His wife Isobel and eldest daughter Margaret died.
Back in 1965 there was no way of knowing that a wet winter would have created this tragedy. In 2026 we are more to blame, not just for ignoring warnings but for warming the earth and increasing the rain.
In a Facebook post yesterday (25/1/26), Bryce Edwards (https://www.facebook.com/edwards.bryce) argues back to those who say that talk of climate change is ‘politicising the tragedy’. He writes that “disasters are political, because the risks were set by decisions made long before the rain arrived. Such disasters are political because they are where weather collides with decisions about land use, infrastructure, safety regulation, emergency management and, increasingly, climate policy. When people die, the question is not whether politics is involved, but whose politics has been quietly shaping the risks in the background.”
Bryce highlights the silence about climate change in response to this week’s events, and the link between government policy and inevitable climate disasters. “The Government’s current plan leaves us tens of millions of tonnes short of our own emissions targets. That shortfall turns into storms, slips, evacuations and funerals down the track.” His challenge is whether we are prepared to name it.
Bizarrely, it feels harder to name it now than 2 years ago. Cyclone Gabrielle felt so obviously a climate disaster, but now the social climate wants to pretend we don’t know that. It seems like the more we know about global warming the less we care.
Personally, I have been ‘banging on’ about climate change for the past 7 years and I am tired. I don’t want fresh evidence that climate science is right. There is no joy in ‘I told you so’. I would like something else to work on. And there is plenty of other crap going on in the world to either focus on or block out.
During 2025 I was profoundly honoured to meet many of Aotearoa’s leading people in the area of climate psychology. I co-ordinated a series of talks, both in person and online, connecting in over 300 mental health and community professionals and academics. Across a diversity of topics the question that sat there in every conversation is how to link knowledge with action. The realities of global warming and environmental destruction are too big and too complex, too hard. It is astonishing how the human mind, both individually and collectively, finds ways to push dangerous knowing away, out of the way, cover it up quite literally.
The hillside in Muriwai which became a river of mud in August 1965 now has five houses built on it. What kind of wishful un-knowing enables that? Jesus told a story about two houses, one built on rock and the other built on sand (Matthew 7:24-27). When the storm came, only one survived – no prizes for guessing which one! His saying is a proverb about wisdom and foolishness, about the vital link between putting what we know into practice, insight = action.
My sense of calling is to encourage sustained faithful wise leadership in Aotearoa. Talking about climate change is not ‘cool’, and climate action is not ‘trendy’, but ignoring it is not an effective strategy. The only answer is leadership.
I call on you to find ways to hold what you know and feel about climate change, and to choose your path. What is your contribution to make?
How might you tell your truth ‘in season and out of season’? (2 Timothy 4:2)
What sustains you in climate leadership, whatever that looks like for you?
As a trauma therapist, I encourage you to find solid ground, powerful ways to calm your nervous system. A landslide is the ultimate picture of overwhelm. Solid ground becoming a rush of mud, dragging you under. Everything that was normal and safe sucked into cold deadly slime. My father and sister experienced that and survived. I feel it happening within me and around me with the multiple threats of a warming world. We must all learn to manage the overwhelm, for ourselves and for other people.
What helps? Listen to good people. Be part of communities of care. Rest. Feel grief. Connect deep with who you are and the strong foundation of your being. For me that is knowing God, maker of all, Jesus, saviour of all. What is it that grounds you?
Nurture dreams bigger than you and pick a few achievable goals.
What do you need to name this year, and what will you do about it?
Photo: Muriwai, August 1965, the house my father and his family were holidaying in. (Photo Auckland Star. https://gsnz.org.nz/assets/Uploads/branches/Geocene-28_Feb-2022.pdf)
Our nation is reeling from the deaths of 8 people in landslides in Tauranga. This connects with me all too keenly. In 1965 my father Ern Crane and his family were buried in mud in a landslide in Muriwai. He and his daughter Christine were, incredibly, dug out and survived. His wife Isobel and eldest daughter Margaret died.
Back in 1965 there was no way of knowing that a wet winter would have created this tragedy. In 2026 we are more to blame, not just for ignoring warnings but for warming the earth and increasing the rain.
In a Facebook post yesterday (25/1/26), Bryce Edwards (https://www.facebook.com/edwards.bryce) argues back to those who say that talk of climate change is ‘politicising the tragedy’. He writes that “disasters are political, because the risks were set by decisions made long before the rain arrived. Such disasters are political because they are where weather collides with decisions about land use, infrastructure, safety regulation, emergency management and, increasingly, climate policy. When people die, the question is not whether politics is involved, but whose politics has been quietly shaping the risks in the background.”
Bryce highlights the silence about climate change in response to this week’s events, and the link between government policy and inevitable climate disasters. “The Government’s current plan leaves us tens of millions of tonnes short of our own emissions targets. That shortfall turns into storms, slips, evacuations and funerals down the track.” His challenge is whether we are prepared to name it.
Bizarrely, it feels harder to name it now than 2 years ago. Cyclone Gabrielle felt so obviously a climate disaster, but now the social climate wants to pretend we don’t know that. It seems like the more we know about global warming the less we care.
Personally, I have been ‘banging on’ about climate change for the past 7 years and I am tired. I don’t want fresh evidence that climate science is right. There is no joy in ‘I told you so’. I would like something else to work on. And there is plenty of other crap going on in the world to either focus on or block out.
During 2025 I was profoundly honoured to meet many of Aotearoa’s leading people in the area of climate psychology. I co-ordinated a series of talks, both in person and online, connecting in over 300 mental health and community professionals and academics. Across a diversity of topics the question that sat there in every conversation is how to link knowledge with action. The realities of global warming and environmental destruction are too big and too complex, too hard. It is astonishing how the human mind, both individually and collectively, finds ways to push dangerous knowing away, out of the way, cover it up quite literally.
The hillside in Muriwai which became a river of mud in August 1965 now has five houses built on it. What kind of wishful un-knowing enables that? Jesus told a story about two houses, one built on rock and the other built on sand (Matthew 7:24-27). When the storm came, only one survived – no prizes for guessing which one! His saying is a proverb about wisdom and foolishness, about the vital link between putting what we know into practice, insight = action.
My sense of calling is to encourage sustained faithful wise leadership in Aotearoa. Talking about climate change is not ‘cool’, and climate action is not ‘trendy’, but ignoring it is not an effective strategy. The only answer is leadership.
I call on you to find ways to hold what you know and feel about climate change, and to choose your path. What is your contribution to make?
How might you tell your truth ‘in season and out of season’? (2 Timothy 4:2)
What sustains you in climate leadership, whatever that looks like for you?
As a trauma therapist, I encourage you to find solid ground, powerful ways to calm your nervous system. A landslide is the ultimate picture of overwhelm. Solid ground becoming a rush of mud, dragging you under. Everything that was normal and safe sucked into cold deadly slime. My father and sister experienced that and survived. I feel it happening within me and around me with the multiple threats of a warming world. We must all learn to manage the overwhelm, for ourselves and for other people.
What helps? Listen to good people. Be part of communities of care. Rest. Feel grief. Connect deep with who you are and the strong foundation of your being. For me that is knowing God, maker of all, Jesus, saviour of all. What is it that grounds you?
Nurture dreams bigger than you and pick a few achievable goals.
What do you need to name this year, and what will you do about it?
Photo: Muriwai, August 1965, the house my father and his family were holidaying in. (Photo Auckland Star. https://gsnz.org.nz/assets/Uploads/branches/Geocene-28_Feb-2022.pdf)