Jan's in Southland - all's Wright with the world

This morning I met the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright and had a wee chat with her, before she began her adress to the combined councils of Southland. I have long admired her work, especially her findings and conclusions around lignite mining. Today, my admiration for her grew, both from what I heard from her in our little tete a tete, and from the presentation she gave to the assembled be-suited councillors.
Her message on lignite? It's the very worst of the fuels and presents too many problems with it's production. Jan was very clear that she doesn't find credible, Solid Energy's (Don Elder's) assurances that they will sequester the CO2 produced beneath Southland's green pastures, or under the seabed of the Great South basin, or that they will off-set the huge volumes of gas produced, by planting trees. She managed the climate-denier from the Gore council, he's the Deputy Chair I believe, well, by presenting the reasons for her firm belief that climate change is real, and comforted him by saying, 'I commend you for taking an interest', but that's as much as she was prepared to concede. Southland's Mayor Frana Cardno spoke powerfully about her concerns around lignite, saying that buried lignite was, 'money in the bank' and that that is where it should stay for the meantime. Jan described the extraction and use of lignite as a fuel as, 'truly unsustainable', and gave it no quarter. Those in attendance must have been struck by her clarity of purpose and depth of knowledge of the lignite issue.
I've not had a chance to hear what their reactions are but will be asking around for their opinions later.
She, incidentally, described the situation with the Waituna Lagoon, as 'truly alarming'.