National’s ranks are cracking about climate change

Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, July 22nd, 2019 - 90 comments
Categories: climate change, ETS, global warming, national, paula bennett, same old national, science, Simon Bridges, todd muller, transport, uncategorized - Tags:

So it appears that some within National’s ranks may not want to play politics about climate change and may actually want to support meaningful policy.

From John-Michael Swannix at Newshub:

National’s climate spokesperson is supportive of the Government’s electric vehicle (EV) feebate policy, despite opposition from the party’s leadership.

A feebate scheme has been proposed which would see up to $3000 added to the sale of our highest-polluting vehicles in order to subside cleaner vehicles by up to $8000 from 2021.

In an interview with Newshub Nation, Todd Muller was asked if he’d keep the policy if National won power at the next election.

“I’m broadly supportive,” he said.

“Transport is an area that has 20 percent of our emissions but more critically we have at our fingertips a technology, in this case electric vehicles and maybe in time hydrogen vehicles, that you can roll across the New Zealand sector to improve emissions.

“If you do have technology available to assist with those emissions reductions then I think it is a fair question to ask about how best can we speed up that adoption.

“A feebate is just one part of the equation. I’m interested that they haven’t looked at the tail of our very old and increasingly unsafe cars, at what can be done to reduce them from the New Zealand fleet that is appropriately fair and equitable for those people who often drive those, who’re often at the lower end of our socio-economic profile.”

I wondered if Muller ran this past party hierachy?  Because his comments are in stark contrast to what some of the others were saying.

Again from Stuff:

Deputy Leader Paula Bennett derided the policy as “yet another tax on hard-working New Zealanders” on The AM Show. Leader Simon Bridges, who owns an EV and as Transport Minister rolled out an EV incentive policy in 2016, also blasted the policy on Twitter.

National has decided to change tack and to now claim that there are not enough electric vehicles and this is all the Government’s fault.

From a National Party press release:

The paltry 135 electric vehicles that have been added to the Government fleet since the Labour coalition took office shows it is failing to lead by example, Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges says.

“Information released to National shows only 135 electric vehicles have been registered for the first time to any government agency since the present Government took office. In real terms, the Government itself has done nothing on electric vehicles since the election, except propose more taxes.

“There’s about 15,500 vehicles in the Government’s fleet. Prior to the last election, National committed to a hard target of making one third of them electric or hybrid vehicles by 2021, alongside our much bolder ambition of having 64,000 EVs in the country by then.

“National believes electric vehicles are the future. Since our Electric Vehicles Programme launched in May 2016 the number of EVs on our roads has increased from 1406 to 14,867.

I thought I would have a look for the policy and found this page and this graph:

The curve is pointing up and the trend is accelerating and the number of EVs now on the road has doubled since this Government was elected.

What can be said about National’s previous policy?  Well unless the rate of introduction increases by a factor of up to 8 over the next 18 months National’s goal will not be met.  Remember they promised a fleet of 64,000 by 2021.  But they had little supporting policy apart from an absurd idea to let electric cars use bus lanes and priority lanes, later amended to priority lanes only because the disruption to the bus lanes was going to be too much.

This policy, which Bridges described as the “single most-effective non-financial incentive” to get people into EVs flopped and has been discontinued.

Time will tell but I believe that the trend of new EVs will continue and the new policy will provide a significant incentive.  National clearly will be hoping and praying that it fails.

90 comments on “National’s ranks are cracking about climate change ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. dv 1
    22 July 2019 at 7:47 am

    Preying???

    [Damn. Fixed … MS]

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    22 July 2019 at 7:49 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/114364327/dont-panic-over-tasman-district-coastal-hazards-says-mayor-richard-kempthorne

    "To anyone who says climate change is nonsense, my comment would be that with the extreme weather events we have experienced and I've been involved with over the last 10 years, we can't ignore it – it's absolutely real," the mayor said. "Let's all face it."

    Tasman district residents are being urged to stay calm if they receive a letter indicating their property may be at risk from sea level rise and storm tides.

    "I'd say don't panic but come and find out," mayor Richard Kempthorne said.

    "I'd really strongly encourage them to get involved … find out all the information they can about potential impacts where they live."

    About 5500 letters from Tasman District Council are expected to arrive this week in the mailboxes of people whose properties have been identified as potentially at risk. Those properties are within or partially within areas affected by a range of sea level rise scenarios on new council coastal hazard maps, scheduled to be available on the council website from Monday."

    Cinny and Greywarshark will know plenty about this, no doubt.

    • Formerly Ross 2.1
      22 July 2019 at 8:48 am

      Robert

      Extreme weather has been with us for a long time. Canterbury has had it fair share of such events going back to the 1860s when there weren’t too many vehicle emissions. What do you think caused those extreme weather events?

      http://i.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/your-weather/9795243/Records-show-extreme-weather-history-repeats-for-Canterbury

      • Robert Guyton 2.1.1
        22 July 2019 at 8:55 am

        It's the rate of occurrence, Formerly, that concerns. These extreme events are coming more and more frequently and as you read, records are being broken regularly, especially high temperature events around the globe. We need to look more widely than our own backyard to see the over-all trend because in some places, the "micro-trend" doesn't match the wider effect; Southland's proximity to the Southern Ocean and it's curious oscillations, for example, means we are having a more settled experience than in previous years. Climate is complex and anomalies will be occurring in unexpected places, but overall, the changes are matching the models and the models spell trouble for humanity.

        • fustercluck 2.1.1.1
          22 July 2019 at 12:30 pm

          Search for "Grand Solar Minimum" and look at the weather/temperature/climate cycles associated with these solar trends going back many centuries. Do these cycles more closely match what we are seeing then climate-alarmist models? I think so.

          • Pat 2.1.1.1.1
            22 July 2019 at 12:38 pm

            "Several studies have investigated the potential climate impact of a future grand solar minimum. In every case, they have concluded that such a quiet solar period would cause less than 0.3°C cooling, which as previously noted, would temporarily offset no more than a decade and a half’s worth of human-caused global warming. These model-based estimates are consistent with the amount of cooling that occurred during the solar minima in the LIA."

            https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/09/the-imminent-mini-ice-age-myth-is-back-and-its-still-wrong

          • Andre 2.1.1.1.2
            22 July 2019 at 12:43 pm

            You mean a temperature timeline like this one? (Yes, I know it's a comic strip, but the time-temperature graph is accurate and the annotations add useful context.)

            If that doesn't cover what you're on about, how about you present the data and arguments for your point of view, rather than telling people to go off and search for themselves (which gives you the added bonus of telling people to go off and search some more when they don't find anything that supports your claim).

            And if you prefer, here’s what actual climate scientists say about the Grand Solar Minimum idea:

            https://skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-mini-ice-age-intermediate.htm

            • Poission 2.1.1.1.2.1
              22 July 2019 at 1:00 pm

              We live in the SH, NZ variation is important .

              https://www.niwa.co.nz/sites/niwa.co.nz/files/styles/medium/public/sites/default/files/images/imported/0007/35836/past-nztemp_0.gif?itok=U8hkNNuW

              (The scale does not show the recent warming,)

              • Pat …
                22 July 2019 at 1:36 pm

                care to characterise that variation and its importance?

              • Andre …
                22 July 2019 at 1:42 pm

                Well, yes, we're a group of small islands in the middle of a big ocean.

                So if the only change happening is a shift in the balance of incoming solar heat vs outgoing thermal radiation, then that big ocean's thermal mass means we're going to have much slower changes than large continents.

                But if there's changes in ocean currents, then we're going to see much more rapid changes in response to changing ocean temperatures around us.

                The temperatures we will actually experience is a mix of those two and a bunch of other factors. But the global socio-political-economic environment we will have to deal with will be driven by global climate changes (with regional variations). Climate changes local to New Zealand will have fuck-all influence on that.

                • Poission …
                  22 July 2019 at 2:32 pm

                  But if there's changes in ocean currents, then we're going to see much more rapid changes in response to changing ocean temperatures around us.

                  A reversal of the poleward westerly wind belt as expected (under the montreal protocol) would reduce subduction due to a reduction in persistence.(and not increases in stress)

                  https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JPO-D-17-0106.1

              • Poission …
                22 July 2019 at 1:56 pm

                The holocene temperature was warmer in NZ then the 20th century,the orbital forcing smaller then solar max/min ie globally 0.1%.

                • Pat …
                  22 July 2019 at 3:11 pm

                  "The warmest conditions of the present cycle occurred between 10,000 and 6,000 B.P with temperatures about 1°C above modern values."……."By 2,500 B.P. New Zealand’s modern climate and broad scale circulation patterns were probably established, with more frequent and stronger west to south west flow (Salinger and McGlone, 1990). Glacial advances in southwestern New Zealand and natural forest fires in eastern South Island began to occur, indicating that zonal flow had strengthened, and that the east was periodically subject to extreme temperatures and dryness. These variations may have been partly due to establishment of modern El Niño Southern Oscillation behaviour, which continues to exert a strong impact on New Zealand’s weather and regional climate characteristics. The average temperature over New Zealand in the 3,000 years leading up to the early 20th century is thought to have remained within about 1°C of 12°C, which is about 3°C below the global average. "

                  https://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-resources/clivar/pastclimate

                  warmer?

            • Gareth 2.1.1.1.2.2
              25 July 2019 at 7:23 pm

              Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1732/

              • Andre …
                25 July 2019 at 7:36 pm

                Yeah that's the one I embedded a link to in my first sentence where "this one" shows blue text instead of black. Did it not show up onscreen on your device? I sometimes wonder if embedding links like that means a lot of people miss them.

      • woodart 2.1.2
        22 July 2019 at 10:08 am

        one in a hundred year floods happening every five years should tip even the unbelievers off..

      • greywarshark 2.1.3
        23 July 2019 at 6:12 pm

        Scientists have published a lot of information over the centuries and decades about their specialist subjects such as weather changes and predictions. FR what do you think caused those information events to continue? Once they emerged at the beginning of record keeping, there have been updates as time continues on, with positing about the changes.

    • Clive Macann 2.2
      22 July 2019 at 9:07 am

      Climate change is very real.

      I do not believe it is man-made though.

      More cyclic in nature.

      Weather patterns from past centuries have been similar and there were no cars back then.

      • Robert Guyton 2.2.1
        22 July 2019 at 9:37 am

        Clive; you don't think the increase in greenhouse gases resulting from human industry have any effect on the climate? You don't subscribe to the Greenhouse Effect as a testable/provable scientific phenomenon? You don’t believe the wide-spread destruction of the planet’s forests affect the climate, given their widely-recognised effect on the climate, local and global?

        • Ken 2.2.1.1
          22 July 2019 at 5:30 pm

          Are you trying to teach chemistry and physics to idiots?

          • Robert Guyton 2.2.1.1.1
            22 July 2019 at 5:57 pm

            I was doing a pre-test, Ken to establish the base for possible instruction, but got no takers.

            • Incognito 2.2.1.1.1.1
              22 July 2019 at 6:59 pm

              I think you might have to start at the very beginning with re-constructing the cognitive linguistic skill set.

              • Sam …
                22 July 2019 at 7:23 pm

                No one wants to be told what colour of blue the sky is at any given time. Normal people just want to know how much it will cost them. And the cost of transitioning to a carbon zero economy will be born out of increasing productivity and putting levies on automation. This isn't taxing income tax or a financial transaction tax. We'd be taking one or two percent of future production in the form of increasing government contributions to the Cullen Fund and using that to unfuck societies infrastructure through the Infrastructure committee that The Champion for The Regions, Honourable Shane Jones is working up. It's going to be our Singapore moment. Son.

                • Pat …
                  22 July 2019 at 7:58 pm

                  you do realise that if CC progresses as is indicated the Cullen Fund wont exist?

                  • Sam …
                    22 July 2019 at 8:07 pm

                    [Chill Sam, chill … MS] off

                    • Pat …
                      22 July 2019 at 8:17 pm

                      can only guess as to the consideration given to that reply

                    • Sam …
                      22 July 2019 at 8:56 pm

                      Then consider the value usually given. By the way, it's an estimated 20% permanent reduction of the GDP.

                    • Pat …
                      22 July 2019 at 9:23 pm

                      and 20% of nothing is….?

                    • Sam …
                      22 July 2019 at 9:38 pm

                      20% of nothing would be how much your utopian dreams are worth.

                    • Incognito []
                      22 July 2019 at 9:42 pm

                      Dreams are free. Everybody knows that!

                    • Pat …
                      22 July 2019 at 9:44 pm

                      my utopian dreams find no space between my dystopian nightmares

                      [Did you really want to use this handle Patmy utopian dreams can finf no room between my dystopia?]

                    • Sam …
                      22 July 2019 at 9:58 pm

                      Its difficult not to be proud when the government gets something correct. Labour should be reelected just for gun reforms. NZFirst should be reelected for getting those bridges and NZDF budgeted for. The Greens should be reelected just on the carbon bill alone. But Y'know politics isn't that easy to win.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      23 July 2019 at 8:12 pm

                      I reckon they’ll sail in.

                • Incognito …
                  22 July 2019 at 8:30 pm

                  I’ll have to take lessons from Robert because I could not parse that comment 🙁

                • Robert Guyton …
                  23 July 2019 at 6:49 pm

                  "No one wants to be told what colour of blue the sky is at any given time. Normal people just want to know how much it will cost them."

                  People the world over ask, "What's the weather like today" and appreciate being told what colour the sky is; it costs them nothing to learn that it's blue, purple, pink, grey, black. Your odd action of monetising the simplest of human interactions is concerning, Sam.

                  • Sam …
                    23 July 2019 at 6:59 pm

                    What peope?

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      23 July 2019 at 7:04 pm

                      Normal people.

                    • Sam …
                      23 July 2019 at 7:24 pm

                      Well of course the woke would assume that they are the normal people. You would arrive at that conclusion if your objective was to ignore everything else that I said. And just ignore all the other people who pay tax and wonder how much more taxes they'll have to pay into climate change. Got an answer for them?

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      23 July 2019 at 8:14 pm

                      Yes. Compared to how much climate change will cost them if they don’t contribute to its mitigation, a contribution now is well worth it. In any case, there are better ways to ready people for a challenging climate than taxing them.

          • Andre 2.2.1.1.2
            22 July 2019 at 7:17 pm

            Chemistry? Nobody has even got started on ocean acidification.

      • Stuart Munro. 2.2.2
        22 July 2019 at 9:42 am

        The fires in what was once permafrosted peat haven't happened before in recent centuries. https://globalnews.ca/news/5663184/arctic-fires-co2-sweden/

      • Anne 2.2.3
        22 July 2019 at 9:51 am

        You know what CM. At last count, 97% of the world's meteorologists and climatologists know that since the industrial revolution a few centuries ago, humans have been pouring masses of CO2 into the planet's atmosphere and we are rapidly approaching tipping point when it comes to the detrimental side-effects on the planet's overall climate. This of course is over and above the normal ebbs and flows of climate variables over time. The count may well be 100% now, apart from a handful of rogue ideologically driven nutbars.

        You know nothing when compared to those scientists, so I know who the majority of sane people are going to believe, and it isn't the likes of the willfully blind deniers such as yourself.

        • Ken 2.2.3.1
          22 July 2019 at 5:35 pm

          Well, I prefer to believe the PR companies employed by the people who are making billions out of selling fossil fuel. LOL!

      • Andre 2.2.4
        22 July 2019 at 10:05 am

        Uhh, Clive, you may want to be extra careful not to have anything in the "Website" box when you make a comment, what's there is publicly visible. A mod may want to tidy that up for you. Cool that you got your car back, tho.

        When it comes to greenhouse gases and climate change, do you have any physics expertise to explain why two centuries of really smart people that have spent years studying atmospheric physics and heat transfer are (almost) unanimously wrong about CO2 in the atmosphere heating the planet? Or how human activities over the last few centuries (mostly the last few decades) that have raised CO2 levels nearly 50% are unrelated to the rapidly rising temperatures we are now experiencing?

      • woodart 2.2.5
        22 July 2019 at 2:39 pm

        of course climate change isnt man made. how can seven billion people burning things ,possibly have an effect on the earths climate(sarcasm alert)

      • Clive Macann 2.2.6
        27 July 2019 at 12:24 am

        I'm only here to stir up debate.

        Seems it worked.

    • Cinny 2.3
      22 July 2019 at 12:50 pm

      I knew we would eventually have a beach front property.

      According to the map of Motueka our house is going under. But that's ok we are going to move up into the loft, least that's the plan for now.

      Will be interesting to read the council plan for dealing with it all. Looks like we've got a bit of planning to figure out.

      Looking forward to the local body elections.

      • greywarshark 2.3.1
        23 July 2019 at 6:22 pm

        I think there are instructions in the bible for building an ark Cinny. Or what about a barge hull that the house gets winched onto?

  3. Sanctuary 3
    22 July 2019 at 8:07 am

    And Simon Bridges is busy on NatRad right now saying he'll scrap the policy because it's about "tax(??????)"

    Trouble in the ranks…

  4. dv 4
    22 July 2019 at 8:11 am

    One key factor in the take up of EV is the distribution of charging stations.

    That is not too bad ( although finding them is some times a challenge.)

  5. Infused 5
    22 July 2019 at 8:19 am

    My issue is the making of the batteties and the replacement of the batteries after 10 or so years.

    How are people going to afford to replace them?

    What about the German report vs diseal?

    What about the dirty process of extracting rare earth minerals for the batteries. We all seem to be ignoring this.

    • Andre 5.1
      22 July 2019 at 8:55 am

      All of those are engineering issues that are getting a lot of attention and rapidly improving.

      The battery deterioration problem is largely confined to Nissan, who went cheap on their battery packs by not including thermal management, and charge and discharge much closer to the battery limits.

      Rare earths aren't used in batteries, it's cobalt that's the dirty there. Most manufacturers are putting a lot of work into reducing or completely eliminating cobalt. Tesla is almost there, and expects to be there within the next several years. IIRC, Tesla Model S batteries started out around 20% cobalt by weight, they're now under 3%.

      Where rare earths do get used is in some motors, but again there's a lot of engineering effort to minimise and eliminate. Again looking at Tesla, the Model S and X use induction motors which don't need rare earths, but the Model 3 uses a different motor design that uses a very small amount of neodymium for some very small strategically placed magnets. This looks like a step backwards, but the new motor design significantly cuts energy losses in the motor, which were already very small in the induction motors.

      • Infused 5.1.1
        22 July 2019 at 9:25 am

        That sounds a bit better then. If we are going to subsidize evs they have to be much better than the alternative imo

  6. solkta 6
    22 July 2019 at 8:33 am

    The Soyman looking really crap on RNZ yet again:

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018705144

  7. Andre 7
    22 July 2019 at 8:40 am

    A flow-on consequence of getting more electrified vehicles on the road is there will need to be a serious look at how the road network is paid for.

    Currently EVs (light and heavy) are exempt from paying towards the road network, but those exemptions are scheduled to end. Presumably, when the exemption ends EVs will be charged at the same RUC rates as diesel vehicles, currently 7.2 cents/km for vehicles under 3.5 tonnes.

    That all light(-ish) diesel vehicles are charged at the same rate is claimed to be because there is no significant difference in road wear between a 1 tonne vehicle and a 3.5 tonne vehicle. Therefore there is very little weight component in the light vehicle RUC, and that 7.2 cents/km goes entirely towards sharing non-weight related roading costs such as land acquisition, signage etc. (This claim was on a government webpage I saw recently but haven't found it again to link it here).

    This seems to me like a hidden subsidy to heavy vehicles, in that the only weight related costs attributed to heavy vehicles appears to be the extra engineering work to strengthen the subsurface immediately under the roadbed, and fails to correctly attribute the costs caused by the trucking industries demands for larger radius corners, gentler grades etc. Consider the Mt Messenger bypass: for any light vehicle user, the existing road is just fine, the demand for a new road is coming entirely from the trucking industry. Yes light vehicle users will be lumped with the costs too. In this case the trucking industry is like the dude that goes out to dinner and gets the $20 lobster appetizer and the $35 steak while his date gets an $8 salad, then expects his date to split the bill 50:50.

    Then consider the inequity that will be caused by EV cars getting getting charged 7.2 cents/km against what a similar petrol car pays. Currently petrol excise tax is 66 cents/litre, so a car guzzling 10.9 l/100km pays excise tax at the same rate as diesel RUC. That's a guzzler like a Porsche Canine or HSV Codpiece, most petrol cars currently on the road are much more economical. Indeed, a petrol car with fuel use around 3.5 l/100km would pay less for their petrol than an EV user would pay in just RUC alone. While I'm not aware of any cars that are realistically that low, there are plenty that are well under 5 l/100

    • Ad 7.1
      22 July 2019 at 9:09 am

      You could expand EECA and dedicate its fund towards transport, eventually folding it into the NLTF.

      • Andre 7.1.1
        22 July 2019 at 9:11 am

        There's so much low-hanging fruit in the areas the EECA is already tasked with it would seem a waste to dilute its efforts and divert the funding.

    • dv 7.2
      22 July 2019 at 9:21 am

      Good comments Andre.

    • mickysavage 7.3
      22 July 2019 at 10:59 am

      Yep this is going to be one of the biggest issues for NZTA to get its head around. National's policy was no RUC payable while EVs were less than 2% of the fleet. Numerically this would be about 70,000 cars or so.

      • Andre 7.3.1
        22 July 2019 at 11:23 am

        Surely this issue is something that has enough implications and consequences outside of just road transport that it's an issue for Cabinet to be driving, not NZTA? It affects our national emissions profile, national energy use and fuel imports, potential increased demand for railways and so on.

        • Pat 7.3.1.1
          22 July 2019 at 11:41 am

          and an issue one would have expected to have been addressed comprehensively before now and yet there appears no plan or even discussion as yet…..so we can expect further delays to any implementation.

          Time

    • OnceWasTim 7.4
      22 July 2019 at 1:25 pm

      " In this case the trucking industry is like the dude that goes out to dinner and gets the $20 lobster appetizer and the $35 steak while his date gets an $8 salad, then expects his date to split the bill 50:50."

      Sorry to be base @ Andre, but it's worse than that. The dude then expects a 'root' as of right.

  8. AB 8
    22 July 2019 at 9:40 am

    "I’m interested that they haven’t looked at the tail of our very old and increasingly unsafe cars, at what can be done to reduce them from the New Zealand fleet that is appropriately fair and equitable for those people who often drive those, who’re often at the lower end of our socio-economic profile." (Todd Muller)

    They haven't looked at it Todd, because the answer is to solve the problem in a way that works not just for EV purchases, but also for housing, education and healthcare. The answer is an increase the incomes of "those people" – through a combination of higher wages, increases in the social wage (public services free at the point of use, UBI), shifting of the tax burden away from GST and wages under about $50k and onto higher wages and capital gain, etc.

    All those things would have the National Party and their middle-class enablers across the entire media landscape screaming the house down.

    • Stuart Munro. 8.1
      22 July 2019 at 9:46 am

      It's not just wages of course – neoliberalism has introduced deadweight costs right across the economy, from gst to massive rents to some of the most expensive power in the world and inflated capital costs of houses and farms. These generate structural inequality that no wage movement alone can realistically counter.

  9. Pete 9
    22 July 2019 at 10:15 am

    So we have a thing about 'meaningful policy' illustrated with a National MP alongside a road which their hoarding says 'isn't very safe.' Well one of their hoardings.

    There to distract drivers trying to keep safe on an unsafe road. Can you get 'meaningful' out of such mindlessness?

  10. george.com 10
    22 July 2019 at 8:53 pm

    Simon Bridges was bang on the money this morning though talking about traffic congestion forecast to rise in Auckland over coming years. He stated

    They've cancelled all our roading projects, they haven't started a single new one, and what they're going to do is slow New Zealand down with slower speed limits, says National Party leader Simon Bridges.

    Bloody right Simon.

    Everyone knows that extending the Waikato Expressway from Cambridge to the foot of the Kaimai Range, and to Tirau will markedly reduce congestion on the Southern Auckland Motor way. And its simple common sense that for the mugs stuck on the western motor way each morning a four lane extension of the Northern Motorway from Warkworth to Whangarei will make a huge difference. And four laning of the Napier to Hastings Expressway along with the four-lane State Highway 1 link between Christchurch and Ashburton will make a dramatic difference with the commute over the harbour Bridge each day.

  11. Jackel 11
    22 July 2019 at 8:55 pm

    That's the National party saying whatever they like on this issue because you can do that in opposition. I'm fully aware of their past record on this issue so take what they say with a grain of salt.

    I guess it's a case of preaching to the converted here. We're just made in such a way that we grasp the concept of climate change from man-made causes. What needs to be done is that those of different temperaments than our own, who are more easily swayed by mischief makers, are reached and have this issue explained to them in language they can understand. Then public opinion will shift enough and this will carry everything along including the politicians.

    I don't believe appeals to heroism will be sufficient to solve this issue. It needs to be a collective action.

    As for those who know and continue to deny, they should be taken outside and shot. It's that serious.

    [Inciting violence is not tolerated on this site. Banned for one month – Incognito]

    • Mack 11.1
      22 July 2019 at 11:29 pm

      So the mischief making deniers should be taken out, lined up in front of an open pit and two shots to the back of the head, then, Jackel? Good job there's only one vote per person in this country.

    • Incognito 11.2
      23 July 2019 at 7:51 am

      See my Moderation note @ 8:55 PM.

  12. peterlepaysan 12
    22 July 2019 at 10:10 pm

    Bridges and his party are talking to their political base of uncritical loyalists, a la trump.

    The natz know they cannot deny 9 years of social welfare destruction and bribing the already wealthy with more money.

    They are nervous that some of the loyalists might be wavering.

    The natz have always been strong on "Strength and Leadership" , similar to other unsavory regimes.

    Note they turned the environmental EV thing into a tax one.

    The only thing the natz value is money, the root of all evil.

    Money is power, the natz have to have a greedy wealthy power base and will always try to deliver neo liberal bullshit to satisfy greedy selfish self entitled people.

    Climate change is irrelevant to personal wealth. That is natz for you.

    Slightly off topic (since when has that mattered on this blog?) The mmp threshold needs to be lowered so more voices are heard. 16 year old voters is interesting.

    • Pat 12.1
      22 July 2019 at 10:13 pm

      why restrict it to 16….voting should be available to all citizens who wish to exercise the right

      • solkta 12.1.1
        22 July 2019 at 10:16 pm

        Eight year olds? Four year olds? Two year olds?

        I remember taking my daughter to the polling booth first when she was three-ish and she was really keen to have go.

        • Pat 12.1.1.1
          22 July 2019 at 10:22 pm

          why not?…are they not citizens…I doubt any 2 year olds would wish to or be able to but no reason why a 5 or 10 year old shouldnt have their say….the argument they may not understand could easily be applied to many adults who do vote….and research shows those that vote from a young age continue to remain engaged whereas those that dont in their first couple of elections tend never to vote

  13. Robert Guyton 13
    23 July 2019 at 10:13 am

    "National's climate change spokesman Todd Muller says disagreeing with the use of the word "emergency" does not mean he is a climate change denier."

    See image smiley

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/114264612/taking-stock-before-second-attempt-at-declaring-new-zealandwide-climate-emergency

    "Declarations over the past two months from regional and city councils have proven useful in flushing out those other councils that are deniers.

    "They are as much about who doesn't sign up as who does. And internationally that analogy holds too – countries that have declared climate change emergencies, and I think New Zealand should be in that club, and those that won't, such as the United States.""

    • Psycho Milt 13.1
      23 July 2019 at 11:04 am

      "National's climate change spokesman Todd Muller says disagreeing with the use of the word "emergency" does not mean he is a climate change denier."

      He's right, of course. It's his diligent efforts to prevent or undermine any attempts to mitigate climate change that mean he is a climate change denier, not his opposition to calling it an emergency.

      • Robert Guyton 13.1.1
        23 July 2019 at 12:09 pm

        It's odd. Some of the Environment Southland councillors who opposed the climate emergency vote used the same phraseology.

        Curious…

    • Mack 13.2
      25 July 2019 at 1:27 am

      The guy, Gary (Climate Crisis) Taylor, looks quite a dangerous climate cultist, close set eyes and a sort of forced smile showing ground flat teeth. (Tooth grinder) Anybody up for a bottle of Koolaid from this character ?

  14. Robert Guyton 14
    25 July 2019 at 6:15 am

    Mack: the guy in the picture is Todd Muller, National's Climate Change minister. His smile is necessarily forced, but we can hardly blame him for that; he's surrounded by denialists.

  15. Mack 15
    25 July 2019 at 10:56 am

    No, the guy I'm referring to is the climate cultist second picture down from Todd Muller.

    Todd Muller himself looks a bit of a bald-headed believing loon. … but both these guys are not in the same league as the number one global climate cultist, Bill McKibben…

    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2013/06/wild-bill-mckibben-outlaws-of-physics/

    Second picture down is good one of this fully blown nutter.

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