Donna Awatere Huata dismantles Duncan Garner’s climate denial on The AM Show

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
33
120

Since the student strike against climate change apathy was announced, Duncan Garner and his sidekicks have been shitting on the students and writing them off as a joke.

Which is why it was so lovely seeing the Māori Climate Commissioner, Donna Awatere Huata, utterly dismantle Garner this morning…

Donna Awatere Huata told The AM Show the strikers are well aware of what they’ll be walking away from when they take part.

“Kids love school, kids value school. This is meaningful to them – it’s not a day off. They can do that any day without any repercussions, but here they’re actually making a stand.”

The first child to protest was Swedish teenager Greta Thundberg, who chained herself to her country’s parliament in protest.

The movement has spread across the world, including Australia and the UK.

Ms Huata said she can’t believe how widespread the movement is and how intelligent the children leading it are.

“I just find it unbelievable that there’s hardly a town in this country that isn’t having a strike tomorrow. I’ve met some of these organisers, kids as young as 10 – goddamn, honestly they blow me away.

“Ten years old, 13, 14, they’re so articulate, so intelligible, so knowledgeable – and I think it’s up to us parents and grandparents to get in behind them.”

…it was nice to watch Duncan stumble and trip over himself.

Everyone who cares about the children in their lives should march tomorrow.

I’ll be there with my 9 year old daughter. It’s for her future and the futures of every child.

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33 COMMENTS

  2. Well said, Martyn and Donna.

    The latest numbers:

    Daily CO2
    March 12, 2019: 412.14 ppm
    March 12, 2018: 408.59 ppm

    • If I were sarcastic, AFKTT, I’d say the increase in CO2 is due to Duncan Garner and Mike Hosking’s ravings.

      But on a more serious note; thank god for the children!!! Maybe they will prick the collective conscience of us entitled babyboomers .

      To Donna Awatere – thank you! Keep at us, we need to be reminded to get of our asses and do what needs to be done.

      We will be joing the children tomorrow. And they will lead us.

  3. School Strike 4 Climate ‘not a day off’ – Māori climate commissioner

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/03/school-strike-4-climate-not-a-day-off-m-ori-climate-commissioner.html

    “We have the right to fight for our future, we have the right to a secure future and a safe climate future,” leader Sophie Handford told Magic Talk afternoons host Sean Plunket earlier this month.

    Donna Awatere Huata told The AM Show the strikers are well aware of what they’ll be walking away from when they take part.

    “Kids love school, kids value school. This is meaningful to them – it’s not a day off. They can do that any day without any repercussions, but here they’re actually making a stand.”

    The first child to protest was Swedish teenager Greta Thundberg, who chained herself to her country’s parliament in protest.

    The movement has spread across the world, including Australia and the UK.

    Ms Huata said she can’t believe how widespread the movement is and how intelligent the children leading it are.

    Why the growing alarm over catastrophic climate change is justified
    by Joanne Black / 13 March, 2019

    https://www.noted.co.nz/planet/climate-change-nz-growing-alarm-is-justified/

  5. FFS it should be part of the school curriculum to participate in such protest actions. Any person criticising or blocking it is exposed as being a climate change denier, or of that sorts.

    A far greater revolution would be needed, e.g. taking out the polluting elements of technology out of the economy, e.g. fossil fuel burning cars, but who dares go that far?

  6. yes she is right I heard two young people speaking and they were better speakers than many of our politicians in fact they put many of our politicians to shame. If I was in the Green party I would be lobbying this group and working with our youth before the next election so they can harness more votes and so they don’t have to compromise on their environmental policies all the time as they have done with so few seats.

  7. The climate has always changed. In the last (of many) ice-age you could walk from London to Berlin with nothing but a river crossing. That ended without industrialization. Note that was a phase change (ice to water) not just a temperature rise. That takes a massive amount of energy.

    Our entire way of life and ability to support 7 billion people is predicated on being able to drill a hole in the ground and have high density energy gush out. This resource is finite and takes energy to extract. One day that sum will become negative.

    I am a double degree scientist and am yet to find any convincing evidence in this ridiculous climate debate. Scientists has gone over to the dark side of playing politics instead of speaking the truth.

    If we don’t act now on alternatives, fossil fuels will be the end of mankind, but the solution is not lies, stifling debate, fake news and witch hunts. We need to be building stop gap solutions (with relatively cheap fossil fuels), yes even fission, while we put effort into making fusion work. Otherwise we will have war, famine, and plague on a scale that makes a 1m rise on sea levels look like a party.

    If I were a kid I’d be marching to tell adults to stop playing politics, return to the truth and work together to save humanity using science.

    It shouldn’t be driven by a ‘convenient lie’

      • My degrees are in two areas that are extremely relevant to the study of climate. Such is the way the ‘debate’ is being run I don’t want to share any more identifying information than that.

        Science is about fact, not about consensus – often the opposite. We simply don’t know (even after the fact) what impact we are having on the most complex system science tries to study (climate / weather). The results of a computer model do not constitute (by any measure) proof.

        Climate debate is a red herring, at some point we know that it will take more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil. We know that everything from food production to medicine refrigeration to water purification runs on fossil fuels. We know that the current infrastructure and alternatives do not come close to filling the gap.

        There are more than enough verifiable facts to warrant investing huge amount of time, effort, and money in finding alternatives to consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels.

        • John if you are at knowledgeable about the multi disciplinary research accumulated about man’s passage from approximately 1800 to 1970 and the projections of those trends over the next 44 years, then you may well appreciate that it is not climate alone that presents a problem.

          The use of oil has been grossly polluting but the use of harvested energy has been the real killer.

          Complex – you bet!

          So you have attempted to justify oil use on maintaining population. Huh?

          Your perspective appear to be rather narrow and deeply in denial of what else is happening.

          • ‘So you have attempted to justify oil use on maintaining population.’

            No I am not. I am saying that our total reliance on oil represents an immediate easily provable threat. An issue that is far more easily debated rationally than ‘climate change’ (by which I really mean AGW).

            Actually, I think that we are over populated (not least because of our world system predicated on endless growth). But there is a big difference between loosing billions to war, plague and hunger (because of oil shortages) than having a system that reduces the world population through birth control and other systemic changes.

            AGW is a red herring. It’s not a helpful debate since for every argument there is a (reasonable) counter argument (from both sides – whatever their dubious motivations may be). The system is simply too complex to prove to the level required to make the drastic change from oil (‘equivalent to the entire industrial effort of the second world war with everyone fighting on the same side’).

            Our total reliance on fossil fuels and their finite quantity (and thus the looming threat) is a much easier thing to prove scientifically.

            • Not all populations are reliant on oil.

              We have cultured and addiction to harvested energy.

              The complexity is of our own creation and there seems no justification for prolonging it.

              So John how do you see it panning out over the next 50 years if we continue the way we are addicted to, and what changes do you hold hope for.

        • “My degrees are in two areas that are extremely relevant to the study of climate. Such is the way the ‘debate’ is being run I don’t want to share any more identifying information than that.”

          In which case it is up to individuals whether or not to take your claims at holding “degrees” at face value.

          We cannot assess your qualifications nor whether or not you hold any conflict(s) of interest.

        • Small but vital point.

          The scientific method is not about proving but weighing up evidence to disprove.

          Chalk and cheese, basic stuff

    • I’m glad we agree that fossil fuels are finite, and a transition to renewables is the only option we have. Climate change just makes it all the more urgent to do that.

      > The climate has always changed

      Nobody is disagreeing with that. But there is overwhelming scientific evidence that adding carbon to the atmosphere heats it, that human activity has added a lot of carbon, especially over the last couple of centuries, and that this is forcing climate change well beyond it’s usual balance. An explanation with links to the relevant peer-reviewed papers can be found here:
      https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

      Elsewhere you state that science is about facts, not consensus. But how to we decide what the facts are? Flip a coin? Majority rule? No, we have ongoing debates among responsible scholars, who attempt to come to consensus on what facts fit the available evidence at any given time. To quote F. C. Dane’s ‘Research Methods’:
      “There can be no scientific approach without consensus.”

      Anyone who thinks they have evidence that disconfirms an established consensus can join those scholarly debates. I think it’s worth noting that climate change “skeptics” don’t do that. Instead they engage in trial by media, spending a lot of corporate PR money trying to misdirect the jury in the court of public opinion.

      • No, carbon dioxide is a known green house gas. In a simple system, e.g. a closed glass bottle it will retain more reflected solar radiation energy than air with less CO2 in it.

        In a complex system like the earth no one knows how it affects the climate because there are millions of system at play with both positive and negative feedbacks, e.g. more clouds reflecting sunlight, more plants absorbing C02.

        Personally I find that the more remote people are from science the more they think it can predict. The problem is science is very very complex – especially the climate/weather. When scientists dumb it down to ‘AGW is true because the climate changes’ Then you are a long way from science and into the realm of persuasion and politics (legitimate but not science).

        • In a complex system like the earth no one knows how it affects the climate because there are millions of system at play with both positive and negative feedbacks, e.g. more clouds reflecting sunlight, more plants absorbing C02.

          Clouds also retain heat, John, a fact you should be aware off.

          What do you base your remark on about “more plants” when Indonesia and Brazil are clear-felling rainforests and converting them into mono-culture with less plants growing?

          And suggesting that “no one knows how it affects the climate because there are millions of system at play with both positive and negative feedbacks” is not exactly a reassuring reason to keep filling the atmosphere with CO2.

          Two facts that are clear; (1) CO2 levels are increasing (2) temperature is increasing. Unless you think NIWA, NOAA, and NASA are all fudging the data from ocean buoys and satellites?

  8. For many years some of us have been highlighting the extreme danger of causing the Arctic to significantly overheat because what happens to a significantly overheated Arctic affects the entire planet.

    The Guardian now reports that serious overheating of the Arctic and many of the worst possible outcomes of that overheating are inevitable [because policies to prevent rapid planetary meltdown have not been implemented].

    ‘Sharp rise in Arctic temperatures now inevitable – UN
    Temperatures likely to rise by 3-5C above pre-industrial levels even if Paris goals met’

    Particularly significant is this statement:

    ‘Last year’s stark warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, setting out the dramatic impacts of 1.5C of global warming, did not include the impacts of potential tipping points such as melting permafrost.

    If melting permafrost triggers a tipping point, the likely results would be global temperature rises well in excess of the 2C set as the limit of safety under the Paris agreement. Nearly half of Arctic permafrost could be lost even if global carbon emissions are held within the Paris agreement limits, according to the UN study.’

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/13/arctic-temperature-rises-must-be-urgently-tackled-warns-un

    In other words, the future is likely to be a lot worse that the worst-case scenarios presented recently by the IPCC.

    Therefore, children would be fully justified in engaging in school strikes EVERY WEEK until politicians get real about making genuine practical preparations for the inevitable dire consequences of the failure that has characterised politics over recent decades.

  9. Well, read these two links on RNZ this morning?
    I have a theory. Did I write about my theory?
    Here it is again:
    The planet is over populated by pointlessly consuming humans and the worthless riche.
    In 12 years, at the current rate of humping/breeding, there’s going to be another 1 billion human humper/breeders.
    At our present position? We’re fucked. Our biosphere can’t keep up.
    Now what? What’s the answer? Is there an answer? Are we really, truly, completely and totally fucked?
    The short answer from what I’ve read, watched and heard is yes. Yes. We’re fucked. We fucked it up.
    Now what?
    I’ve heard rumours of very riche people coming here and digging holes into which they will sequester themselves within. Five level deep climate change bunkers dug down in Nu Zillind. No. I’m not high. I could be crazy which would be great because crazy people don’t know they’re crazy and ignorance is bliss, right?
    The first link blouts about space tourism. I bet the Martians are already planning air bnb’s. We soar into space and as the previous evenings polite-dining-dahlings reflux flushes up our Oesophagus we gag in delight at seeing the planet we rooted get all roundy and whispy out a porthole because we could.Yay. ( Meh. )
    Bull shit. In my opinion, it’s a last ditch attempt by the uber riche to get the fuck outa here and they’re covering their tracks by saying ‘Tourism!” Then, after they release the drone spread viruses? Stay up there for several months and return after the blow flies do their thing and the riche elite know the viruses have become inert.
    Not a bad plan I must admit. Unfortunately, I know where I’ll be left. Standing on my lawn, bending backwards looking up mumbling “ What th’ fuck is that then…? )
    Fact. Did you know? ‘Space’ per se, is just one hundred K above? Stand a line up from Christchurch to Ashburton and Ashburton would be in space. Not such a bad thing if jenny shipely was at home at the time. Put her between the earth and the sun? A bit of shade?
    It’s also 2.22 hrs from Ch Ch to Meikleburn Station’s front gate. Didn’t know that either, right?
    The other link contemplates the end-of-the-world extinctions. Yay.
    Does it not support the previous link on space and beyond.
    Space port. Feasible. whoop. yay.
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/384753/space-port-could-be-feasible-in-nz-in-10-years
    Extinction. double whoop. double yay. So excited!
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/384655/contemplating-the-end-of-the-world-with-extinction-rebellion
    @ MB is right. We need HRH QE2 to pop by for a cuppa with her two new aircraft carriers and a swarm of Tornado GR4’s and some F35B’s. Now! Right now please!
    Here’s a wee speck of well meaning advice @ MB. Buy you’re kid a wee section somewhere along the Clutha River Valley. They’re out there and cheap-as. Clutha River? Largest river by volume in Nu Zillind. You’ll drive beside that beautiful river and think “ Jesus! Isolated! “ But in time to come dear @ MB. In time to come.

    • I did indeed look, Rickoshay.

      Do you know what I did learn?

      The author of that article is one Dr Roger Higgs, from a company he owns, Geoclastica Ltd.

      Geoclastica Ltd is a consultancy firm that offers services such as, “assess economic viability of oil/gas fields & basins” .

      On his website, he states,

      In petroleum exploration and development, incorrect interpretation of sequence stratigraphy (prediction of reservoir distribution) and depositional environment (reservoir geometry) risks huge economic losses in (A) misplaced wells, (B) missed oil and gas, and (C) phantom resources.

      He calls this: “Vital economic importance”.

      ref: http://geoclastica.com/

      Were you aware how closely Dr Higgs works for the oil and gas industry?

      If you were, did you not think that was a salient piece of information to share with us?

      If you were aware of Dr Higgs’ connection with oil and gas, what other information have you presented to us that is also tainted by the fossil fuel industry? And do you not think that a person’s connection to a particular industry creates a conflict of interest when he presents a “research paper” that would directly benefit it?

      Dr Higgs is not a climate scientist. He is a sedimentologist specialising in petroleum geology. That information is from his own CV.

      ref: http://geoclastica.com/RogerHiggsCV.htm

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