Stuart Smith doing what National Party MPs do best, spread lies about climate change…
‘Science of bull****’: National MP Stuart Smith alleges climate change cover-up
National Party MP Stuart Smith has described a Government climate change plan as the “science of bull****” during a talk in Ashburton this week.
The Kaikōura MP floated suggestions that warmer temperatures would not cause an increase in extreme rains – contrary to the Government’s National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) plan.
…it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Party who drove a tractor up the stairs of Parliament because they didn’t believe in global warming is back to its old games of minimizing global warming and claiming we can’t do anything.
Let’s remember, Judith is in bed with the deniers.
Judith published an opinion piece on the fossil fuel paywall gated community that is ‘Carbon news‘ in 2019 which argues against zero carbon, the Paris agreement and downplays the magnitude of what we are facing.
She was doing the classic ‘question the science’ tactic, which the tobacco industry used to argue there was no clear connection between cancer and smoking. She was also signalling to the deep pockets of the pollution industry that if she was leader they would have a much more benign environment to operate in.
Judith is directly leading the climate denier electorate who refuse to point blank accept any of the science. Here is what science blog has had to say about Judith’s absurd claims…
The Zero Carbon Bill implements this agreement for New Zealand. It implements what the National-led government agreed to when they signed the Paris Agreement, which Judith Collins now states “is not justified by any scientific findings” – this after innumerable scientists and delegates, including those of the New Zealand government, pored over and agreed to every word. Since the Agreement was signed, the IPCC 1.5ºC report – “1.5 to Stay Alive” – has strengthened the case for 1.5ºC. There is a broad consensus, both in New Zealand and internationally, about what needs to be done. Contrary to what Collins claims, the NZ emission target does not have “almost zero chance of being achieved”; it is entirely feasible and will lead to health and economic benefits for all New Zealanders.
As for “there is no indication they [the costs of global warming] are insurmountable”, it partly depends on what value you place on mass extinction and the loss of treasures like the Great Barrier Reef, not to mention coastal cities. How can this be surmounted?
The existential risks are real if difficult to size up. Hans Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and climate advisor to the EU, Angela Merkel, and the Pope, said in 2018, “I think there is a very very big risk that we will just end our civilisation. The human species will survive somehow, but we will destroy almost everything we have built up over the last two thousand years. I think we have more than a five percent chance of [preventing this]. But it’s definitely less than 50% in my view.”
…with Labour we are trying to get Jacinda to live up to her rhetoric on combating global warming, with National we are still trying to get them to admit there it’s even happening.
That’s why we can never let National near power again.
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LOL at the same time as we are currently burning diesel at peak winter demand……..
The future you speak of will require rolling blackouts as there is no way:
a). Any affordable or largescale hydro will be consented in the next 25 years
b). We still have capacity constraints in regards to the transportation of power from the South to the North
c). Wind farms and solar will continue to demonstrate that they are inefficient garbage for large scale power generation
The irony of course is the decision to ban further exploration of natural gas has resulted in dirty coal being imported from 3rd world Asian countries. At least National is honest whereas the current government at best can be called hypocrites; at worst liars when it comes to climate change.
At some stage we require a grown up conversation and acknowledgement of the true costs of meeting our emission reductions not airyfairy bullshit from BMW Jimmy.
Of course we could always go nuclear……..
and let’s not forget that China and India are growing their emissions at such an incredible rate that NOTHING that NZ does will have any impact whatsoever other than to make us poorer and less able to help those in need.
How much dirty Indonesian have we burnt since that utterly uniformed and ideologically driven ‘Captains Call’ to collapse our domestic energy production? It was just another pointless and useless virtue signal from a government bereft of ideas who are seemingly incapable of actually doing anything
So Martyn, by all means lets keep National out of power but I ask what’s the alternative? Seems this current bunch of oxygen thieves have actually made things worse. They don’t even want to help the West Coast by using NZ coal.
Shut the hell up.
Why. Do you not like the answer when it’s inconvenient?
No I just want to say how much I appreciate your perfectly wonderful genius level intellect and congratulat your parents thoroughly.
“Why. Do you not like the answer when it’s wrong?”
there fixed it for you
Doesn’t West Coast coal get premium prices for high-carbon steel production, whereas low-quality thermal coal is being imported because the prices are way down?
It’s the power generators choosing to bank the savings that are driving this, not the government: although if we didn’t sell the family sil – sorry, generating capacity to “Mom and Pop” investors who turned out to be Chinese infrastructure investment companies – perhaps this could have been avoided?
Which government was hell-bent on selling them off, again?
Yeti, you must be able to think of some reason to clean up our own country. We ain’t 100% Pure or whatever that misleading slogan says. Clean up our cities air quality so we can breath fresh air? That won’t happen with ICE vehicles and BAU. Nitrates out of water, so we drink quality water? All part of same problem. Who cares what China and India does to themselves, let them choke in their own filth.
“and let’s not forget that China and India are growing their emissions at such an incredible rate that NOTHING that NZ does will have any impact whatsoever other than to make us poorer and less able to help those in need.”
Untrue on its face.
A) what a wonderful model you’ve created full of ashfualt, bricks and morter and chocked full of smog. Such a perfectly wonderful example of the the mind and intellectual of the always ready to display the Frank the Tank level of intelligence.
B) I don’t think that’s the kind of nation I want to live in and it’s not the kind of Nation that maori could take on to survive and then thrive. In the north island we have to do business there because that’s where the major ports and your perfectly wonderful levels of Frank the Tank level genius want to place New Zealand’s major power generation as far away from that. That takes an intellectual powerhouse to be able to rationalise a theory like that.
3) let’s just assume that your first 2 theories of unemployment economics are correct so that I don’t have to hurt your feeling.
Like it or not pollution is a problem and whether you are in the North or South Island it’s so what. There’s no reason for New Zealand’s major electricity generators to be way away from where they need to be. Solar and Wind, a little bit of hydro and them a hydro replacement (Nuclear fussion) fixes that.
And no feelings was harmed in the making of this comment.
Kelvin Davis would be proud of that word soup.
You are acting like I decided (prior to my birth) to locate our major hydro power generators down south. I’m pointing out an inconvenient fact that sooner or later a second, stronger cook straight power cable is required for Jimmy’s electric legion at the cost of billions. And for the record I favour starting a discussion on nuclear pending it being economic for the country.
Ironically it would appear we are on a similar wavelength although your left wing tribalism won’t allow you to acknowledge it.
The exploration ban has had no difference on generation using gas because its caused by problems with infrastructure that are causing the lack of gas. Any exploration in the past few years would not even be in production by now.
Your views in point C) on solar and wind are just totally ignorant, and strangely aren’t born out if you bother to read anything in energy blogs – e.g. 78% of all new power installations in the US were solar and wind: https://electrek.co/2021/08/03/egeb-in-2020-78-of-new-us-power-installations-were-clean-energy/
Solar and wind are being deployed in record numbers all round the world, having broken through 50% of total grid energy in many countries and showing no sign of stopping. Now batteries are going through the same growth curve of cost reductions, only faster!
As usual NZ is woefully behind because of our fucked up electricity marketing makes new investment in any generation borderline uneconomic while gen-tailers rob us blind through price fixing. Even hobbled with this neoliberal mess, solar plants are now coming on line and more wind finally being built.
Re Pt C, Yes: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/07/31/first-time-record-us-renewables-generated-more-electricity-either-coal-or-nuclear
You lost me at “at least Nationals honest”.
Cmon Bertie – even you can acknowledge your mobs climate change policies have all the depth of a 3 day old fat in a storage container.
Or do you like the smell of Indonesian coal?
I’ve got wind, thankfully I have solar as well as wind is proving to be shit and destructive. It is very inefficient at everything except virtue signalling.
That’s why the woke/identity politics/cancel culture thing is so worrying. It gives National/Act the chance to be in power and put off doing anything at all another ten or twenty years
Here have an EV, see climate change is all fixed.
Ohh look! a strawman.
What does it matter what anyone SAYS any more?
I hope you’re all doing what gives you satisfaction and contentment.
Consider taking up yoga though, it will help you kiss your arse goodbye.
Nature Bats Last/Science Update/Shifting the Baseline.
‘Perfectly safe’: Asbestos, DDT, Phthalidomide, smoking tobacco, nuclear power, lead in petrol, exhaust fumes from diesel engines, lead in drinking water, sewage leaks onto beaches, cow shit in streams and rivers, microplastic in your bloodstream…..
Never forget, Stuart Smith’s plan is to render the Earth uninhabitable for humans as quickly as possible -via unrestrained CO2 emissions and unrestrained CH4 emissions- so that not only do his progeny suffer premature termination via overheating and starvation but he suffers the same.
I have only one question: how did so many fuckwits and liars-on-behalf-of-corporations manage to keep their snouts in the public feeding trough (parliament) for so long?
Actually, I know the answer: corporate sponsorship of liars, and a dumbed-down general populace.
If temperatures of 45oC across America and Europe and Siberia, and out-of-control fires all over won’t change the idiotic narratives of politicians, what will?
We know that answer to that one too: money. Especially money that can’t be traced.
Oh, I keep forgetting; NZ is clean and green and free from corruption.
‘Lying to retain privilege is rampant.’
Full text:
‘In response to the ever-accelerating crisis known as abrupt climate change, the conventional approach is to shift the baseline. Instead of admitting the planet is at or near 2 C above the 1750 baseline, governments and many scientists have determined the baseline is actually 1981-2010, or later. This allows so-called scientists and self-proclaimed political leaders to claim Earth is “only” 1 degree Celsius above the 1750 baseline. Adherence to the Precautionary Principle is clearly unfashionable. Lying to retain privilege is rampant.
We have known for decades that the 2 C number set in stone by economist William Nordhaus is dangerous. We were ”running out of time” to deal with greenhouse gases in 1965, according to the chief of the American Petroleum Institute. Fourteen years later, it was Edward Teller informing Big Oil they needed to change. Exxon accurately predicted where we were headed in 1982, and not only failed to heed the warnings, but kicked the warnings and the future of humanity to the curb. Al Gore and Carl Sagan testified to Congress in 1985 that we must act now on climate change. In late June 1989 Noel Brown, the director of the New York office of the United Nations Environment Program, indicated we had only until 2000 to avoid catastrophic climate change.
About 16 months after Brown’s warning, the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases set 1 C as the absolute upper limit in October 1990. In doing so, they concluded that, “Beyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.” In other words, they described the initiation of self-reinforcing feedback loops.The Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gaseswas the predecessor to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and 1990 was their final year in existence before they passed the proverbial baton to the IPCC. Climate-change speaker and writer David Spratt said 0.5 C was too high in October 2014. I identified 65 irreversible self-reinforcing feedback loops in my “Climate-Change Summary,” last updated more than five years ago.
In April 2006, climate scientist James Hansen said, “I think we have less than a decade to avoid passing what I call ‘point of no return.’” More than three years after passing the 10-year mark, he called my idea of near-term human extinction “crazy.”
In September 2018, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said we have until 2020 to turn this ship around. The ship powers on, full steam ahead.
It was undoubtedly too late to reverse abrupt, irreversible climate change in 1977 when Nordhaus shared his genocidal opinion, much less in 1989. After all, the aerosol masking effect was strong at least as far back as the Roman Empire, according to peer-reviewed literature published in 2019. And comforting words aside, we haven’t done anything to prevent our own extinction in the wake of warnings, distant or near.
In October 2018, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated we have until 2030 to hold global-average temperature at 1.5 C above the ever-shifting baseline. Yes, that’s correct: The United Nations is recommending a global-average temperature well below the current temperature as a “target.” Unfortunately, our species does not have until 2030 to do anything, much less hold the global-average temperature below its current level.
Actually, we might have one way out of the ongoing climate crisis. As I have mention a few times recently, the MEER:ReflEction framework created by Dr. Ye Tao at Harvard University’s Rowland Institute offers a positive path forward. However, it seems asking people to give up a few minutes of privilege is too great a sacrifice to save life on Earth.
To quote the late, great American writer Kurt Vonnegut in his breakout book, Slaughterhouse-Five, “so it goes.” Vonnegut used the phrase 106 melancholic times in Slaughterhouse-Five, after describing somebody’s death. Once more will do for me: “so it goes.”
It’s impossible to pay too much homage to Vonnegut. I’ll finish with the last line in the last book he saw published, A Man Without a Country. It was published in 2005, and it concludes with: “People did not like it here.”
I, for one, like it here. I would love to retain habitat for our species, and others, on Earth. After all, as Vonnegut also pointed out in A Man Without a Country, quoting his uncle Alex: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’
https://guymcpherson.com/science-update-shifting-the-baseline/
Thanks for providing the link, though I don’t know why we even bother anymore.
I watched a Jeremiah Babe video this afternoon on the financial disaster developing in the USA, expect another 400,000 first time unemployment claims tomorrow.
He said the temperature outside was 122F,Los Angeles I think.
I’m done with communicating with these cretins. Best of luck to you.
National and Act will not gain power most NZers aren’t that stupid to give this lot another shot at power so soon we are still trying to recover from our brighter future.
National and Act will not gain power most NZers aren’t that stupid to give this lot another shot at power so soon we are still trying to recover from our brighter future.
National and Act will not gain power most NZers aren’t that stupid to give this lot another shot at power so soon we are still trying to recover from our brighter future.
National and Act will not gain power most NZers aren’t that stupid to give this lot another shot at power so soon we are still trying to recover from our brighter future.
Remember elections are lost NOT won.
One thing that this govt is doing which is causing me concern is the water grab, the nationalisation of our water. If it has validity, why so little info on it? And why the rush? The way they are doing it does not make sense to me.
One thing that Judith Collins has said that I agree with (yes, you read that correctly) is her description of the govt $$$$$$$$s to local councils as “bribery”. As I see it, that is exactly what it is, – the way it is being undertaken.
Something is just not right about this water grab.
Why would our children think we’re at all serious about Climate change when they can go into any supermarket and see that fruit and veggies are being flown in from around the world, to sell at cheaper prices than our own home grown ones!
Every time we air freight this food in from the US or wherever, there is a CLIMATE COST! It is our children who will be paying that price. …While we now feed them this climate-harming and often lower quality produce, because we cannot afford local prices. Something has to change!
The comments from the (so called) science blog are precisely why we need clear thinking not outrageous projection based on some demonstrably ridiculous theoretical modelling. There is no evidence that “mass extinctions” as a consequence of CO2 are likely or even possible, the GB Reef is healthier than ever and sea levels are rising at the same rate they have since the end of the little ice age over 200 years ago.
It was Aus govt officials’ “intense lobbying” that kept the Reef off the endangered list:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-23/australia-great-barrier-reef-escapes-unesco-endangered-listing
“Unesco has pressed for additional action after issuing repeated warnings over the worsening condition of the reef. The site has suffered significantly from mass coral bleaching caused by higher sea temperatures, according to a UN report published last month. The body downgraded the long-term outlook for the site from “poor” to “very poor.” ” From same link above.
“There is no evidence that “mass extinctions” as a consequence of CO2 are likely or even possible, “…
….is the dumbest comment on the thread.
Suggest its writer educate him/herself on the factors involved in the Permian/Triassic and K/T extinction events.
Go nuclear.
No. It’s the most expensive way to build and generate power, takes more than a decade to consent and build so is exposed to wild swings in materials and labour costs, has unsolved waster disposal issues, and no private firm will fund and insure nuclear power because the economics are absolutely terrible.
ALL nuclear power is subsidised by governments, to support nuclear weapons. For the same money vastly more renewables can be built in the same time, including batteries which are exceptionally rapidly dropping in price, and they have no waste and insurance issues, and can be consented, financed and built in around a year.
It’s a simple choice.
May 2018: https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.11/climate-change-timber-is-oregons-biggest-carbon-polluter
Excerpt:
Last summer, the skies of Oregon turned a foreboding shade of gray. Forest fires up and down the state blackened forests and left people gasping for air. Politicians stumped about the need to ramp up logging to improve Oregon’s air, environment and economy. The fires and heated rhetoric got Oregon State University researcher Beverly Law thinking about carbon storage and emissions from Oregon forests.
Because of the human health impacts of smoke, the conversation about pollution and forests is typically centered on fires. But the study Law and her colleagues put together earlier this year found that wildfire is not the biggest source of climate-warming carbon dioxide in Oregon forests — logging and wood products are. Figuring out the role of forests and wood in carbon pollution could have major policy implications in Oregon, as Gov. Kate Brown has pledged to meet the emissions goals of the Paris Climate accords. More at the link
We can learn from that.
Again, “wildfire is not the biggest source of climate-warming carbon dioxide in Oregon forests — logging and wood products are. “
Moderation in all things, cept for me spirits and ginger beer ! 🙂 Seriously, we need to go nationalist. Coal, can be used, so also can our hydro (privatized decades ago by the treasonists) we have more than enough power/energy generation resources in this country that can, with technology , be made to burn clean. More than enough both inland and offshore.
Thus, we go nationalist. In this grand country of ours, we can , if we decide to, become almost self sufficient. But that takes a nationalist approach whereby yes, the heads get very rich, but those who keep the whole thing going , the workers , also receive excellent quality’s of life as do the folk downstream from those industry’s.
Think Scandinavia.
Think Scandinavia.
Think Scandinavia.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/07/31/first-time-record-us-renewables-generated-more-electricity-either-coal-or-nuclear
For First Time on Record, US Renewables Generated More Electricity Than Either Coal or Nuclear in 2020
“About half of U.S. clean energy now comes from solar and wind, and the other half from hydroelectric power.”
This clean government have been going hard with the coal importing. Down on the farm though it seems the science farmers would rather try to genetically modify a whole cow species to reduce emissions rather than just reduce herd numbers.
This is what’s really stupid. Most dairy farms can be more profitable with lower stocking levels, and in many cases, shifting to once a day milking, with resulting lower inputs (e.g. supplementary feed, fertiliser), reduced input and labour costs, and better environmental outcomes. Dairy NZ knows this but tries to burry it because they are died in the wool idiots.
The extent of the ownership, power and influence of a foreign country in our AO/ NZ dairying, needs to be looked into…
While reading this the ch 3 news is on – They are showing the fires around the Mediterranean and other areas.
Aotearoa has enough wind farms consented to provide us with the power we need. The problem is the corporate owners/shareholders dont consider economic returns are adequate enough 00 start construction. In the meantime the development and technology have greatly improved their efficiency,
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