The New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition

20 September 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Where is the modern Martin Luther to expose carbon indulgence hypocrisy?

Now that climate change is hitting their wallets, perhaps New Zealanders will start demanding that their government produce the scientific evidence that justifies these new carbon charges and the disruption they will impose on our economy, said Owen McShane, chairman of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

"It's well past the time that our Government should stop hiding behind the questionable opinions of the UN IPCC bureaucracy, and start devoting some of our research funding to studies within New Zealand of whether there is any linkage between emissions of carbon dioxide and variations in our temperatures. NIWA temperature figures show no increase in average New Zealand temperatures since the El Nino high of 1998, if anything we've been cooling. During this same period, we know that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 4%, confirming that there is no linkage between emissions of CO2 and warming.

"It should be noted that even the IPCC does not call its findings predictions, but terms them scenarios. These scenarios are created by computer modelling, and have been widely challenged by hundreds of independent scientists around the world. Yet, we in New Zealand have not devoted one dollar of government research funding to testing the validity of the alternative hypotheses that demonstrate variations in global climate are natural, cyclical and trace back to the sun, the source of all warmth.

"The science is most certainly not settled, and New Zealand has closed its eyes and has done nothing to help to resolve the many uncertainties," said Mr McShane.

"There is one area in which an agricultural country like New Zealand ought to be taking the lead, and that's methane. Our pastoral farmers are being singled out for criticism about the methane emitted by livestock. Yet, while there is a growing wealth of evidence around the world that there has been no increase in atmospheric methane for some years now, and, indeed that it may be reducing, we can find no evidence of any Government funded research in New Zealand about the incidence of a gas which is necessarily so much a part of livestock farming.

"The lack of action on this gas alone is a damning indictment of failure of the Government and its advisers to see where New Zealand's economic interests lie.

"As for the silly cap and trade scheme, this is a throwback to the religious indulgences sold in the Middle Ages: it was acceptable to sin, as long as you paid money for it. Today, it's saying it's acceptable to emit, as long as you pay for it, but there is no guarantee of any reduction in overall emissions, and certainly no likelihood of any effect on the natural variability in the global climate. Where is the modern day Martin Luther to expose this hypocrisy," asked Mr McShane.

ENDS

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