“My first degree awarded in 1981 was a BSc in earth sciences. Part of the course was obviously to do with climate and what was in those days a hypothesis about human induced climate change from greenhouse gases. I have been both aware of and knowledgeable about climate change for decades. I have been talking about it and writing on it for decades from BBS days through usenet to the blogs.”
LYNN PRENTICE“Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
JAMES Verse 4:17 New Testament
Lynn Prentice has claimed on a number of occasions that he has studied climate change. If that is the case, then he should know the terrible danger that humanity faces. So why then is he assisting the politicians and Parties that support an expansion of the fossil fuel industry by helping them cover up this support with silence.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
MARTIN LUTHER KING
It is interesting to note that in banning me from commenting on his website, Lynn Prentice gave as the primary reason, a link to a comment I had made, HERE in which I had dared to point out that one of his authors (micky savage) had done a whole post on the Tony Abbot/Newman debacle in Australia and had not once mentioned the reason why they were both in trouble, which was their complete disregard for the effects of climate change in a country ravaged by climate change, Tony Abbott has even called climate change “absolute crap”.
This complete ignoring of climate change by micky savage in his post on Abbott’s troubles, is not an accident, it is the (un)official line of the Labour Party.
Climate change is the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced, yet climate change never got a mention in the State of the Nation speech of either of the two leaders of our biggest political parties. Andrew Little and John Key appear to have a gentlemen’s agreement not to mention, or debate with each other on climate change. The reason of course is, that both are in agreement that the fossil fuel industry should be left to carry on business as usual.
At The Standard under Lynn Prentice’ leadership even merely noting, this Labour Party silence on climate change, or deep sea oil drilling is grounds for banning.
According to Lynn Prentice not only do we have to endure the Labour Party’s lying by omission, we are not allowed to point it out or comment on it.
We must at all costs not puncture the sin of omission.
I have called on Labour Party supporters to pressure their party to campaign with the Greens (and the wider Left) in the Northland by-election against off shore oil drilling in Northland.
Lynn Prentice has labeled my call for the Greens and Labour to work together, during this election, and to stand united against deep sea oil drilling, “The Mana Northland Line” which Prentice says he will prevent being discussed with a ban.
“Bans for diversion pushing the Mana Northland line on authored posts will be to the end of by-election.”
LYNN PRENTICE
Lynn Prentice at The Standard intends to enforce a silence around Labour’s support for climate change aggravating technologies like deep sea oil drilling in Northland, and no debate on this subject will be allowed on at The Standard website during this election.
Some hope!
Alongside the Labour Party Lynn Prentice’s intention to enforce this silence, during the period of the Northland by-election will prove an abject failure.
But as I have maintained for some time now, as the crisis deepens and becomes more apparent and harder to ignore, the bitter political struggle over climate change even if it is suppressed, has the power to break out into the open to the ruin of political parties and political careers of those who are trying to willfully ignore it, (and sometimes those who try to break this silence and who dare to raise it). In Australia before Abbot and Newman’s careers have been ruined by their support for the climate destroying coal industry, Rudd and Gillard clashed over climate change, specifically over their disagreement over the carbon tax on fossil fuel emissions. And both at various times were deposed because of their stance as one faction grew stronger or weaker in this struggle.
In this country the last Labour leader to take climate change seriously, David Cunliffe was viciously attacked from inside his own party and eventually deposed by the faction that did not want to discuss climate change.
This faction is now in the ascendant in the Labour Party.
Unfortunately for them, (and Lynn Prentice), the Northland by-election threatens to puncture this silence, hence the need to censor anyone who mentions “The Mana line” which is for Maori, Pakeha, rich and poor of whichever party, to work together to oppose Statoil in Northland.
Let the Northland By-election be a referendum on off shore oil drilling in Northland.
The inside word is that Winston Peters may stand in Northland and that he will be running on a platform of opposing offshore oil drilling and exploration in Northland.
On the understanding that Winston Peters will be opposing offshore oil drilling in Northland, the Mana movement will not be standing a candidate in the Northland by-election. This decision was made to give Peters a free run. We feel that by raising these issues and puncturing the Labour National bi-partisan support for Statoil, Winston Peters not only has the power to seriously undermine the National candidate’s support, but also to punish the Labour Party for their intransigence, by knocking their candidate into third place.
It seems that Winston has no problem at all, in running with what Lynn Prentice calls the “Mana Line”.
Reneging on climate change was the initial downfall of kevin Rudd. Tony Abbott and his band of neanderthal goons owe a lot of their public displeasure to their stand on climate change – Aussies aren’t that stupid when they can see what’s happening, and the uptake of solar power is massive – this in itself, makes people think about these things.
Labour is signing it’s perpetual death warrant by trying to ignore CC – amongst thinking people, anyway.
Once again, political tribalism takes precedence over common sense and reality.
It will be very interesting to see how this goes, and will be an indicator (to a point) of the public attitude toward oil drilling.
You have to be joking Pat. I have written dozens and dozens of posts on climate change and said consistently it is the most important issue facing humanity.
You criticise me for doing “a whole post on the Tony Abbot/Newman debacle in Australia and had not once mentioned the reason why they were both in trouble, which was their complete disregard for the effects of climate change in a country ravaged by climate change”. With an even basic search I found this post that I wrote (http://thestandard.org.nz/only-in-queensland/) where I said “It is a shame that [Newman] does not show such a robust approach to climate change policies. It appears that he is still waiting for absolute proof before committing to doing anything let alone shutting down Queensland’s coal industry.” And there is this post (http://thestandard.org.nz/australia-labors-unwinnable-election/) where I said just before Abbott was elected that “[f]or all of Rudd’s faults he is not in the same league of terror inducing as Tony Abbott. The coalition will cause a great deal of damage. For instance their climate change policies are a joke.”
As for offshore drilling I am party of a local board that has steadfastly opposed it. And there is this post (http://thestandard.org.nz/oil-rigs-coming-to-a-beach-near-you-2/) where I said this:
“The environmental risks are significant and the proposed protective measures appear to be totally inadequate. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of New Mexico shows how much damage can occur. And New Zealand does not have the same resources as the United States in handling these potential disasters.
And most importantly if we as a civilisation are going to address climate change we need to leave some of the world’s oil in the ground. And what better oil to leave than the really expensive sort where if an accident did occur then our west coast beaches would be devastated.”
Lprent has over many years written some very good posts on the subject. I suspect that part of the reason he voted Green last year was because Green policies on climate change were more robust.
So your criticisms are totally unfounded and plainly wrong.
“….your criticisms are totally unfounded and plainly wrong.
MICKYSAVAGE
Hi Micky,
I am fully aware of the many posts on The Standard about climate change, possibly even some of them written by you. This is not what I am remarking on.
Most of these posts on The Standard about climate change, are the woe is me, how awful, hand wringing variety, admitting to the problem, but shrinking from demanding that our politicians here do something about it.
When it really comes to the nitty gritty of what the government are actually doing to worsen climate change in this country the Labour opposition is silent.
Sorry Micky but citing the use of an amusing throwaway line about Queensland’s Campbell Newman not being convinced by the mountain of rigorous evidence produced by scientists, that climate change is real, but is convinced by hearsay evidence that he heard on the street, that the Australian Labour Party is funded by gangs. Does not make a convincing argument
To bad Micky that you couldn’t repeat such caustic witty comments about our climate change ignoring coal industry subsidising government nutters here.
I wish you had made the same call here, when you had the chance
Tell you what I am talking about. Compare the statement of the Labour spokesperson for Energy and your own (belated) post on the government bail out of Solid Energy, HERE and HERE. Your Post was good as far as it went, exposing the fact the government were using the sale of Mighty River Power to fund the bail out, and my thanks for this information, but not once did you breath the words climate change in relation to the government using tax payers money derived from the asset sale to subsidise the most dangerous fossil fuel on the planet being mined by a “Technically Insolvent” company at our expense. Not once did you say as you did for the Queensland coal industry that it should be shut down, (even when it was on the brink of collapsing of its own accord.)
Compare what you and Clayton Cosgrove said to the straight talking statement below by Gareth Hughes of the Green Party on the Solid Energy bail out:
To illustrate a point. A statement by a commenter about my post on climate change and deep sea oil drilling HERE where the commenter talks about making tougher conditions to protect the environment from oil spills, which completely ignored what I had written. My discussion of the danger of climate change from unconventional fossil fuel extraction, just sailed straight over his head. Now obviously what an anonymous commenter says is pretty irrelevant except that what this commenter wrote is identical to the the Labour Party official response to Deep Sea Oil Drilling. Which is, willfully ignore the implications of climate change, but talk tough about more stringent environmental controls.
Witness the stony silence that greeted my question on this subject to Andrew Little HERE
Notice that while Gareth Hughes above, for the Green Party mentions climate change in relation to Solid Energy bail out and the criminality of bailing out an industry that globally is the number 1 cause of climate change. Hughes says that this money would have been better spent on a just transition of these workers to jobs that don’t fry the planet.
While you and Clayton Cosgrove steer clear of the issue.
When you and Clayton Cosgrove could have landed some very heavy blows on the government for subsidising climate change with tax payers money, instead you gave the government a free pass.
Instead of tackling the government over the danger of coal to the climate, this aspect of the bail out is missing from your post and also completely missing from Clayton Cosgrove’s press release, in fact you could almost infer from Clayton Cosgrove’s statement that Labour would have acted sooner to bail out Solid Energy.
So what’s behind this silence? Though the Labour Party support motorways over public transport, and deep sea oil drilling and new coal mine projects, over renewable energy projects, they want to keep this off the front pages, because they know this sort of stance is unpopular.
Unfortunately for the Labour Party this may not be possible during the Northland by-election.
Pat you have to be joking. Suggesting that Cosgrove and I are in collusion is an absolute joke.
You have cherry picked a few comments and then extrapolated from these statements because they were individually not staunch enough I am somehow an apologist for the right wing of the Labour Party.
How about you reread all posts that I have written and then respond.
And by the way. You say “I am fully aware of the many posts on The Standard about climate change, possibly even some of them written by you.” Well fark me. You think that the Standard is some sort of Crosby Textor mouthpiece for the right of the Labour Party and our stuff is ghost written. How insulting. I can guarantee every post with my name on was written by me.
You suffer from the far left delusion that only the uber rude and extremists are true left. The only problem with this approach is that it never achieves anything.
Good grief Micky how badly can you misconstrue what I just wrote. I never accused you of ghost writing posts.
I have no doubt some posts at The Standard on climate change are written by you. Something you yourself claimed. I never said that you ghost wrote them under another pseudonym. I don’t know where you got that idea from. I also never accused you and Clayton Cosgrove of being in collusion. I just noted the similarity of your statements about Solid Energy, in that you both ignored climate change when it came to writing about the bail out of the technically insolvent coal miner. For all I know you don’t even know each other. I don’t know how you can read into this that I think you are colluding with Clayton Cosgrove. What I do know is that you are both in the Labour Party, and that the Labour Party actively ignores climate change. The Labour Party actively ignore climate change when it comes to deep sea oil drilling. The Labour Party actively ignore climate change when it comes to coal mining. The Labour Party under the Clark administration actively ignored climate change when they approved the multi $billiion Waterview tunnel and starved public transport in Auckland of funding. The Labour Government actively ignored climate change when they ordered the construction of a trial lignite to diesel plant. The Labour Party in government changed the RMA to make objections to new projects based on climate change grounds, illegal.
You are a lawyer you know this, that in 2004, when your party was in government it passed legislation that ordered the courts of this country to actively ignore climate change when granting local planning consents. A law that Greenpeace and Forest and Bird tried to challenge at great expense in a court case which went all the way to the court of appeal only to lose the case when the judge ruled his hands were tied by the law and though he personally sympathised they would not be allowed to present any evidence relating to climate change.
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/press/greenpeace-and-soe-face-off-in/
Your Party actually made it law to ignore climate change.
Because it is unwritten Labour Party policy to ignore climate change, anyhow and anywhere you can get away with it.
For goodness sake your parliamentary leader and possible future PM just gave a state of the Nation speech which never breathed a word about climate change. Which you yourself said consistently it is the most important issue facing humanity.
And just recently you did a whole post on the troubles of Tony Abbott and Campbell Newman in Australia and actively ignored the main reason for their troubles. which was, need I say it again, climate change.
And according to another Post by Stephanie Rodgers your party intend to run a bi-election campaign in Northland on a “Labour perspective” meaning no cooperation with the Greens and supporting off shore oil and gas exploration in Northland. Are you colluding with Andrew Little and Stephanie Rodgers? as you put it. No, you are just carrying out your party’s proven record of ignoring climate change.
But dare to point this out and all hell breaks loose, because the whole point of ignoring something is that you don’t want to draw attention to it.
They say a fish is not aware of the water. This is why we are having this debate here and not at The Standard. Because The Standard authors and moderators know without knowing that they must ignore the Labour Party’s ignoring of climate change less we bring attention to it.
Micky I don’t believe that you are an apologist for the Right Wing of your party as you accuse me of alleging, but I do believe that you acquiesced to them over drilling off the coast of your own electorate. You say that I accuse you of not being staunch, really? I say that is more likely a projection of how you feel about your self.
Finally you accuse me of being rude and not achieving anything. Green and Mana activists working with local Iwi and Pakeha farmers have just stopped a ruddy great coal mine South of Auckland at Mangatangi. What have you done? You couldn’t even stand up against deep sea oil drilling in your own electorate.
http://aucklandcoalaction.org/2013/09/01/mangatangi-mine-hearings-week-one/
And who is being rude, I merely have to point these things out to cop the most vile string of insults, accusations of being a Misogynist and a sexist and and child exploiter, insults just a matter of degree away from wife beater and child abuser, insults nothing to do with the matter I raised. Which is for Labour to stop ignoring the issue and to work with the Greens. Simple concepts but hard to achieve against fanatical support for the fossil fuel industry from Labour.
It is unwritten Labour Party policy to ignore climate change. (when you can get away with it)
But no more.
May the Northland by-election be where the Labour Party have to come out openly on where they stand on climate change.
I will personally do my best to make sure of it.
Drat irritating missing word.
Websites are NOT revival meetings or protest meeting where repitition equates to comfort to the faithful.
Curiously, my comment didn’t appear, but my correction did not. I pulled this off the stash at the standard and, for luck, I will extend the quote at the front so it makes it absolutely clear what I was responding to and rebutting.
Ok, lets correct and test the moderator. They should explain why a rebuttal comment was removed and what the policy is for such a removal. Otherwise I will treat this as an attack post that does not offer rebuttal and act accordingly. Since this appears to be a site decision and doesn’t appear to be covered by your site’s comment moderation policy, the site will be my target.
After all this is my clear rebuttal opinion about what the post and post author said about me
The moderator is welcome to tear off this prefix to the comment.
//===================
Because being an ignorant hysteric about it (as you seem to be) just makes a problem for the groups who are in fact doing some real work on it. Being a dumbarse troll and dropping ill-informed easily countered facts over every forum on the net doesn’t help in getting change amongst decision makers.
It enhances the view that there is no real difference between the equally silly climate change deniers and the climate change hysterics. They are both most notable for trashing all over websites about their pet badly understood topic regardless what everyone else is talking about – ie the actual topic of the post.
It is the type of activity that gives succour to the carbon PR industry as they go and discredit the more credible scientists and policy level activists from getting real change.
Annoying the operators of sites and cause other readers and commenter (who usually know a damn sight more about a topic) just irritates almost everyone apart from the prima donna egotists yelling “chicken little”.
If you don’t by now realise that activists are judged by their behaviour wherever they appear, then you are a fool. That applies just as much on the web as it does in real life.
We provide a daily OpenMike for comments on peoples own pet topics. We write regularly every few weeks on various aspects of climate change issues. You could have written about it there.
Of course that would have required that you actually did some study of your subject enough to trigger a real dialogue. Banging on a drum with the same old slogans in every comment and post just makes you look like a illiterate nutter to anyone who has read the better informed posts and comments on our sites. Websites are not revival meetings or protest meetings where repetition equates to comfort to the faithful. They are full of many types of literate and interested people. You need to work your audience.
However I note that you still haven’t managed to look at your own behaviour on our site.
You acted like an arsehole troll, writing diversion comments all over posts, telling authors what they should write, and ignoring moderation. So you got banned from continuing that behaviour on our site.
And that you have since carried on whining about it rather than looking at why you were banned simply just shows that your level of personal maturity could do with some work.
Not a good advertisement of a spokesperson for Mana.
Still not addressing the issues Lynn?
How about giving it a try?
However it is good to see that your level of personal abuse has toned down somewhat. (My thanks to the moderator)
You are right I am not a scientist, but those who advise me, and whose opinion I trust, tell me that the problem is terminal, unless we take immediate action.
Do you dispute this?
This means at the very least, No New Coal Mines, No Deep Sea Oil Drilling. A halt to all motorway construction and putting the $3billion set aside for roading into public transport and rail instead.
But as you well know Lynn, the Labour and National parties are both in agreement on continuing with business as usual, when it comes to fossil fuel use. (There is even evidence that both seek to increase fossil fuel use).
Both National and Labour support non-conventional fossil fuel technologies like deep sea oil drilling. Both National and Labour support the opening of new coal mines and the taxpayer subsidy of existing failing ones. National brazen it out, arguing that trashing of the climate is economically necessary, that the economy and jobs is more important than dealing with climate change, while Labour try to hide their support for the fossil fuel industry with a strictly maintained silence.
I have never seen one post on your site that challenges this bi-partisan agreement over fossil fuels and climate change.
And when it comes to the Green Party no effort is spared by Labour to pressure and manipulate the Greens to give up their opposition to deep sea oil drilling or new coal mine expansion.
This is excused as, we are the bigger party so we have a democratic mandate to force the Green Party to accept our platform if they want to work with us. Mean time actively seeking the support they need to govern from conservative parties to the Right of the Green Party who are more likely to concede to them on these issues.
The physics of climate change don’t care if you have a bigger democratic mandate to keep pouring out emissions, and the majority is not always right. Especially when huge well funded lobby groups make sure that the real facts are confused hidden and fudged from the voting public. No mainstream party has yet had to courage to cut through this confusion and directly front up to the public to lay out the bald facts of the extremely dire future we face if we don’t act now. As a result climate change has not as yet been been made into an election issue in this country, with the main contending parties standing on different platforms for the voters to weigh up and choose from. Instead the Main Parties Labour and National are in agreement and the differences Labour have with the Green Party are down played, or papered over.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you see it) the veil may well be ripped off this bi-partisan agreement between Labour and National in the Northland by-election where deep sea oil drilling has become a hot button topic. The political fall out could be far reaching if the Labour Party continue to publicly reject the Greens and openly persist in supporting unconventional fossil fuel exploration.
Unfortunately we will not be gettiing much coverage of this debate at The Standard as you have, for arguably specious reasons, banned all discussion of what you have labeled the The Mana Northland Line
Lynn Prentice tells the world what websites are:
I imagine that many protest groups and churches will be disapointed to hear this news Lynn.
Under the harsh edict delivered from on high by Lynn Prentice defining what websites are; Churches and protest groups all around the globe are closing down their websites as we speak. NOT
Defining what websites are, and are NOT for a global audience. My goodness Lynn even you may have over reached yourself here.
Some times, somethings, are worth repeating, especially if they were deliberately misconstrued in the first place.
Does this make make you uncomfortable? I am sorry for your discomfiture.
If I could offer some friendly advice it is my humble opinion Lynn, that it is best to address the argument. If you can’t address the argument, don’t attack the messenger. Don’t indulge in wild impotent exhortations that make you look ridiculous. Don’t indulge in verbal abuse. Don’t rely on censorship.
Finally we are getting down to it, as Lynn Prentice explains that his banning order and censorship have nothing to do with his false claims of misogyny or his lies about me attacking his authors, or trashing their posts or that I (and other Mana commenters are trolls). None of which accusations are borne out from the evidence, the real reason revealed here is a sectarian desire to silence all political lines that disagree with theirs.
It is all to do with Labour’s wish to silence the Mana voice.
We saw how this sectarian approach by Labour was played out in the general election to Labour’s cost by handing the election to the Nats. And it looks like we are to witness a repeat in the Northland by-election.
On the very thin grounds that I did not send well wishes to Simon Bridges on the birth of his child, Stephanie Rodgers has called me a sexist. Lynn Prentice has enlarged on this to call me a misogynist. Prentice has also left an impression raised by a commenter that I have attacked his authors and the only reason that there is no evidence of this attack in the public record is that he has deleted them from the public record.
Let’s follow the argument:
But lets for a moment ignore all the vicious lies, false inferences, ad hominem, personal abuse, which only purpose is to avoid discussing the issue I raised. (Which Lynn Prentice calls the “Mana Northland LIne”).
Which in essence is this; For all opposition parties to form a united front to fight against the National Government’s plan to seismic test and drill off the Northland coast.
To give the Nat’s a bloody nose in the Northland by-election.
To use this by-election as a test of the popularity of the government’s plans for deep sea oil drilling off our coasts.
The hysterical rejection of any idea of the Left working together, or of Labour ever opposing deep sea oil drilling, is what led to the outrageous string of false accusations, ad hominem abuse and censorship, every dirty trick to shut down and divert away from discussing the issue I raised was used.
And why?
Because Labour’s sectarian approach to the wider Left, and their support for deep sea oil drilling are indefensible in rational debate.
Way to totally ignore my response Pat.
I am sorry Micky but the links you provided in your response don’t seem to be working.
Everytime I click on them I get this error message below.
“This webpage is not available”
I tried to go your Website to search for the original source material but the same message comes up.
However it is late and I presume your site must be undergoing some maintenance. I will try again tomorrow. Hopefully, if I can find the time.
Sorry Lynn – we’ve had to block your last comment because of the abuse in it. I appreciate the level of abuse you give others on The Standard might be fine for the Standard, but we try not to allow that personal spiteful abuse on this site. How you think abusing environmental activists helps Labour is astounding though.
I have seen Lynn’s response and I cannot imagine what is wrong with it. My second comment has been held in moderation for over 4 hours and since I am exercising a right of reply I do not understand why.
My apologies, Greg. I am not always available for moderation-duties. – ScarletMod
Good to know.
I have to comment that you let Pets’ comment above through with far more serious accusation. One where he has clearly read and responded to my comment. However he appears to have been able to rain abuse and carefully self-serving selective quotations with impunity.
So I presume the personal language in my comment was the offending feature?
I will change my comment so that it more specifically uses variations of the word “fool”. While it is tamed down, it also accurately describes my view.
It is regrettable the word “troll” must remain as it is the technical term for how Pat has been acting like on our site. However, while variations of hysteric does appear to be the only natural word that expresses the other way that Pat proceeds in his online presence, if you can find a good synonym then feel free to clearly replace it. I could only really find histrionics but that doesn’t work as an adjective.
So Lets try this for a third time. I will redact my second version in [bold] and my replacement insertions are italicised.
//==============
Because being an ignorant hysteric about it (as you seem to be) just makes a problem for the groups who are in fact doing some real work on it. Being a [deleted] foolish troll and dropping ill-informed easily countered facts over every forum on the net doesn’t help in getting change amongst decision makers.
It enhances the view that there is no real difference between the equally silly climate change deniers and the climate change hysterics. They are both most notable for trashing all over websites about their pet badly understood topic regardless what everyone else is talking about – ie the actual topic of the post.
It is the type of activity that gives succour to the carbon PR industry as they go and discredit the more credible scientists and policy level activists from getting real change.
Annoying the operators of sites and cause other readers and commenter (who usually know a damn sight more about a topic) just irritates almost everyone apart from the prima donna egotists yelling “chicken little”.
If you don’t by now realise that activists are judged by their behaviour wherever they appear, then you are [deleted] being foolish. That applies just as much on the web as it does in real life.
We provide a daily OpenMike for comments on peoples own pet topics. We write regularly every few weeks on various aspects of climate change issues. You could have written about it there.
Of course that would have required that you actually did some study of your subject enough to trigger a real dialogue. Banging on a drum with the same old slogans in every comment and post just makes you look like a illiterate [deleted] fool to anyone who has read the better informed posts and comments on our sites. Websites are not revival meetings or protest meetings where repetition equates to comfort to the faithful. They are full of many types of literate and interested people. You need to work your audience.
However I note that you still haven’t managed to look at your own behaviour on our site.
You acted like an [deleted] foolish troll, writing diversion comments all over posts, telling authors what they should write, and ignoring moderation. So you got banned from continuing that behaviour on our site.
And that you have since carried on [deleted] blustering foolishly about it rather than looking at why you were banned simply just shows that your level of personal maturity could do with some work.
Not a good advertisement of a spokesperson for Mana.
//=====
Note to the moderator. We can’t learn what is acceptable unless you give us hints. These may be from a rapidly rewritten policy that is available to future users of this site, or from notes on the comments where you remove the content. While it is an interesting but long drawn out time wasting exercise for those who have the leisure to do it. I’m afraid that this artform of removing comments without explanation, to me, doesn’t appear to be working. I’m meant to telepathically guess what is acceptable?
Really?
If you would Lynn, could you back up a bit and identify the groups you think are in fact doing real work on climate change?
I would be really interested to know.
Particularly the groups that you claim that I am making a problem for.
And by this, I don’t mean groups or individuals trying to rehabilitate the now completely discredited Labour and National supported Emissions Trading Scheme, (who I don’t mind creating a problem for). Though the Greens often copped the flak for it, the ETS was a Labour Party scheme, and the Green Party only supported the market driven neo-liberal ETS scheme under pressure from Labour. But the Green Party has now rejoined the supporters of real action against climate change, and the Green party want to see the ETS abolished.)
Lynn as someone who claims he has studied climate change you still haven’t answered the question I put to you HERE.
So how about it Lynn, how do you reconcile being gate keeper for Labour’s silence on climate change? That is if you really do have any understanding of the severity of the problem and the terrible danger humanity are in.
Do you dispute that humanity is in terrible possibly terminal danger unless we immediately start taking real world action to address climate change?
Talking of “in fact doing some real work on it” (climate change)..
My own work in Auckland Coal Action has been to implement the agreed Mana and the Green Party policy of “NO NEW COAL MINES in action on the ground.
In a campaign stretching over two years, with the help of local farmers and Iwi, ACA have successfully beaten back Fonterra’s plans to develop a new open cast coal mine in Mangatangi, just south of Auckland.
I know of no other victory of this type in New Zealand.
But ACA are not sitting on their laurels, their next target is to stop Solid Energy reopening the Kopako 1 mine in Maramarua, (also just South of Auckland.) Kopako 1 was mothballed in the ’90s with the closure of the Meremere coal fired power station and for all intents and purposes we consider its reopening, the opening of a New Coal Mine.
If we can stop Kopako 1, it will be a major blow to the coal industry in this country deterring investors from putting their money into new coal projects. Achieving on the ground a Newcoal Free New Zealand. Hopefully and eventually this will be followed by the necessary legislation to formalise this status.
On the local body level ACA have been campaigning to make Auckland the world’s first coal free city. We have found that Auckland is pretty much coal free already, (being mostly electric and gas fired). Perversely one of the biggest hold outs are schools, many of which are still heated by coal fired boilers. ACA have a program to persuade schools to move away from coal fired boilers.
All this, is what I call doing real work on climate change. Stopping deep sea oil drilling is also real work on climate change that I other climate change activists have been involved in, and we will be doing our damnedest to take this issue into the Northland by-election.
On the political front many people have become dispirited at the lack of collective coordinated action against the mortal peril posed by climate change from our political leaders, and wondered why our mainstream political institutions and parties, (including the Labour Party) refuse to take a stand and remain silent.
To answer some of these questions, Auckland Coal Action is hosting a public showing of the documentary Hot Air at Auckland Uni. Owen Glen Building, Thursday March 5. I have been told that this documentary is a real eye opener and is pertinent to the debate we are having here.
Though I haven’t seen this documentary I am told it shows how government and mainstream politicians and political parties are influenced and persuaded by the fossil fuel lobby to downplay, ignore, or go silent on the question of climate change.
At the end of the film Jeanette Fitzsimmons who lived through a lot of this history during her time in parliament and can give an eye witess account, Will give a talk and there will be an open question and answer session.
For details click HERE. There is no charge and everyone is welcome it would be good to see you there Lynn, who knows you might even learn something.
PS. It is nice to see Lynn, that you are beginning to put in qualifiers, (in brackets), of your opinion of me, that I am an “ignorant hysteric” or “pumped up small minded pathetically limp excuse for an activist” Am I detecting a slight softening in attitude here?
If so, I welcome it, and thanks.
What utter bollocks. There is no more or less abuse at the Standard as there is here.
As NZ puts out only point 2 (.2) of 1% of greenhouse emissions anyway, does it really matter?
Hi Dan,
This is the second time you have raised this objection. And I have already made my reponse HERE
But just in case you missed it, I will copy it out again for you in full:
All good stuff, but I simply wonder if we would be cutting of our nose to spite our face for very little, if any benefit in the overall scheme of things. But thank you for the above, and yes I did miss you first posting of it somehow.
Pat, I think you need to read the post’s by Bill over at the standard. I think you really do – Bill has been a constant and strong voice on the impact on climate change. Indeed 9 times out of 10, Bill’s posts are avidly avoided by the right wing troll’s and wing-nuts. I think this is because these post inevitably talk about solutions outside the parliamentary process – more in-line with street solutions. Also Bill can be a dog with a bone and most trolls don’t stand a chance.
I think you wrong Pat – very wrong. Lynn may at times blow his stack and ban people – and guess what he did it to me. And a few of my friends. So what, who cares, take it on the chin – There is no conspiracy.
Let me put this to you, Lynn works crazy long hours, and then comes home works of the servers etc. After which he starts to read the comments – and goes “I’m over this s*&t and bans a few people”. OK maybe he should not read the comments when he is tired – but cut him some slack – he works crazy long hours, has a partner, and family. So what he gets grumpy and bans you – sheesh relax petal your not the only one who wants to see real action on climate change. And quite frankly your love affair with parliamentary solutions, is blinding you – a storm in a tea cup, helps no one.
Like many ‘literary spats’ this is getting boring and counter productive now. There is space for both the Standard and TDB.
A number of points both Pat and Lynn have made are oldish news and just have to be dealt with as political life proceeds really. Just do your time Pat and get on with it; or not!
It is extremely difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the dialogue above.
I’m so glad someone has decided to keep the TDB v TS war going, I was starting to miss the warm fuzzy glow it creates in the left wing blogosphere.
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