There was a recent news item in the “Stuff” newspapers titled “Early Humans Were on the Brink of Extinction”. A major researched reason for the threat to humanity 900,000 years ago was “droughts”, i.e. an extreme weather event.
Then I chanced upon a
recent u-tube by Neil Oliver a Scottish television presenter, archaeologist,
historian and author. In it he lambasted governments for “feverish
blatant fear mongering” about climate change or as it was previously termed
global warming.
Neil Oliver then gave examples of extreme weather events that happened long, long before humans might have had any influence. In 1846, Paris’ temperature reached a sizzling 51.66 Celsius. In 627 AD the heat in France was so great that springs dried up and water so scarce that people died of thirst.
Neil Oliver then cited
other instances of extreme weather such as 1304 when the Rhine and Seine Rivers
ran dry and 1000AD “when rivers ran dry and the fish were left dry under the
protracted heat and petrified in a few hours.”
In New Zealand Cyclone
Gabrielle that wreaked havoc on the North Island’s east coast added fuel to the
fire in the breasts of the fervent climate change advocates.
Climate change has
replaced the term global warming that US politician Al Gore publicised and
promoted with his movie 17 years ago. The “New York Times” in late July 2023,
reported “events of the past few weeks have Gore even more worried than usual.”
“The extremes have now seemingly reached a new level —the temperatures
—-unprecedented drought in Uruguay and in Argentina” thundered Al Gore.
Al Gore is seemingly
unaware of the historical instances of extreme weather events centuries ago,
that Neil Oliver knows about and cited.
Undeniably climate
change has been happening and extreme climate change and associated weather
events in New Zealand also centuries ago.
In my home patch of
Marlborough, there’s an example of the state highway to the West Coast, that
runs alongside the Wairau River. About 80 kilometres from the Wairau’s mouth
into Cloudy Bay is a noticeable hill in the otherwise steady drive from
Blenheim. This hill between Saltwater Creek and the Branch River marks the old
moraine’s debris of a glacier that was formed - according to one source, some
350,000 years ago.
When that Wairau
glacier advanced to just downstream of the Branch River bridge, the climate had
obviously cooled. When it retreated - reportedly 8,000 years ago, the climate
logically warmed.
Today no glacier
exists in the Wairau River catchment. The cooling and warming was just part of
the normal dynamic cyclic nature of the earth’s climate.
Then there’s the
remarkable revelation in entomologist George Gibbs’ comprehensive and
fascinating book “Ghosts of Gondwana” (published 2016) that in Central Otago
near St Bathans about 15 to 20 million years ago, was a large freshwater lake
ecosystem of “a sub-tropical dry climate,” featuring crocodiles, turtles and
eucalyptus trees.
Temperatures had
obviously warmed to a sub-tropical dry climate but then must have cooled to
Central Otago's present day climate of cold winters and hot summers - again
proof of the cyclic dynamics of climate change.
In the North Island’s
Ruahine Range a botanist/hydrologist scientist Dr Patrick Grant identified
climate change cycles going back centuries. Extreme weather such as heavy
cyclonic rainfall or little or no rainfall (droughts) have always occurred. Dr
Grant identified “severe and widespread droughts in 1859 and 1878.” Then a
drought in 1914-15 preceded by an earlier drought in 1907-8 and with
intervening dry years in between, so stressed centuries old forest trees that
they succumbed and died a few years after the massive 1914-15 drought.
Cyclone Gabrielle was
nothing new. Of course there were cyclonic storms in Cyclones Alison (1975) and
Bola (1988). Dr Grant referred to climate changes back through the
centuries, in saying “it was both warmer and wetter and cooler and drier, at
different times.” In the Wakarara Period (1770-1800) he remarked there
was “a very stormy period accompanied by gales.”
Climate change is
real, cyclic and always occurring.
However, I do strongly
consider there are undeniable symptoms of a potential ecological and
environmental degradation. In recent years, I have observed alarming declines
in wildlife species locally such as kingfishers that once conspicuously sat on
roadside power lines. Shining cuckoos in the spring are fewer and fewer. Frogs,
sedge moths at dusk on rivers, mayfly hatches in evenings, whirring evening
starling flights, German owls, moreporks and fewer sea birds, much less bees,
freshwater eels and koura to name some.
In short the symptoms
represented by declining populations of insects, birds and other wildlife, are
ominous - suggesting a potential environmental collapse. Few seem worried and
inexplicably the Department of Conservation. But that is almost certainly due
too Man’s activities and in particular, sprays and chemicals - not climate
change.
To put it simply, the
true situation of climate change can be expressed by an equation
represented by Natural Climate Change plus or minus Human Induced
Climate Change equals the Actual Climate Change.
But the dogmatic,
perhaps demented, disciples of Climate Change/Global Warming seem unwilling to
acknowledge the true situation.
That “plus or minus”
the “Natural Climate Change” is critical to getting the true perspective.
In the frantic
evangelising the factor of “natural climate change” is totally missing. However
for politicians it’s a populous bandwagon to hitch a ride on to popularity and
power - particularly with an election imminent.
Indeed, some
politicians and bureaucrats blame animals both farmed and even wild. In 2007
the Department of Conservation’s director-general Al Morrison bizarrely blamed
wild deer for farting and belching and causing global warming. They need
to be exterminated he ranted.
Animals are an easy
target. They cannot argue back in defence, but people can. The reason? Deer and
cows do not vote but people do. Yet ironically it is people that are the cause
of the problem - or more particularly numbers of people.
People fart and belch
just like cows and deer. Furthermore people drive cars which belch emissions
and fly regularly on jet planes that fart “gases and particles -- which
contribute to climate change.” Late last year Climate Change minister
James Shaw reportedly accompanied by eight others, flew to Egypt to speak to a
Climate Change/Global Warming conference (COP27). Never mind the
hypocrisy of the carbon footprint of the flights for nine.
Humans want jet
flights, demand resources, flush toilets, use chemicals and throw away garbage.
Deer, sheep and cattle don’t.
Climate change
(natural) through ice ages and warm periods, has always been.
But true extent of a
climate change crisis is not in the natural dynamics but in that induced by
people as outlined in the simple equation - Natural Climate Change plus or
minus Human Induced Climate Change equals the Actual Climate Change.
Bizarrely the
government’s ETS ignores the carbon sequestering of pasture and indeed any
trees or shrubs under 5 metres tall. Yet several dozen native plants -some even
at maturity- are under 5 metres in height. The ETS seems designed to be
anti-farming.
No political party has
challenged the current Climate Change fad and the manipulation such as the
selective omission of vegetation under 5 metres in height, or of the ignoring
of the factor of historically proven climate change cycles.
Tony Orman (MNZIS) is
a Marlborough-based author, conservationist, journalist and former town and
country planner.
6 comments:
Things are always evolving including the media. From a century or so ago, when a newspaper would take months to take news around the world, the local temperatures and rain records were globally unimportant.
Now they are flashed around the world in moments by journalists trying to get your attention for their own media.
Or perhaps for more devious idealistic personal agendas ?
Yes, let's stop climate change - let's see what it does to the planet, it would be interesting as it's never happened before in the last 4.5 billion years.
More "sustained propaganda" as Ardern once stated .
I don't believe in Al Gores climate change which was thought up by the Club of Rome amongst other things. Its all a big money spinner.
I do believe that humans are responsible for the demise of a lot of things like the Author pointed out, although places I go have seen plenty of kingfishers and other things, I think it could be in relation the amount of sprays in our environment.
I look at our neighbours who regularly get their houses sprayed for insects by professionals, the spray goes a long way, I note dead insects at my house after.
We all need to take care of our environment and stop listening to the magic square box in the corner.
Well said, Tony, and let’s not forget that our current PM recently took two jets up to China because of the possibility of one breaking down (did it and was that justified?) and the other PM in waiting, who appears an affirmed disciple of this “climate alarmism”, used to represent the nation’s airline – a mode of transport recognised as one of the worst carbon emitters. Unlike the animals you mention, these two are patent hypocrites and they deserve our opprobrium.
The climate is always changing, and while I acknowledge man is contributing to that in a small, yet to be fully determined way, zealots who glue themselves to roads and/or claim the world is ending due to a ‘climate crisis’ need to wake up, or otherwise do humanity a favour by making the ultimate sacrifice and let the rest of us get on with it. I do wonder if these fools realise that the probability of the world ending (as we know it) due to an apocalyptic asteroid strike is 100%, so should we all run around like a ”Chicken Little”, or should we be more measured and sensible about things and look at the reality in terms of the foreseeable future as far as we can control it and the real, undistorted, science behind it?
When one listens to true experts, like Richard Lindzen and Steven Koonin, and other skeptics like Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), it’s clear we should be a lot more circumspect about “Climate Change” and to look at our history a lot more closely before jumping to unfounded conclusions and scaremongering that do us no good - more especially in terms of our mental well-being and, of course, our economy.
Thank you for reminding us about the real damage man is actually doing to the environment like plastic pollution, killing off bees and polluting waterways.
The climate change is a new age cult and like any cult insists on totally conformity. Once again it is distracting us from real problems of human suffering like starvation, severe poverty, child sex trafficking and abuse ,slavery, etc caused by true human vice. Using fossil fuels is not an evil and wronly instilling guilt in this is a characteristic of the cult.
Yes, the climate is just another scare tactic but we must move on and there is only one Party and that is NZ Loyal who are going to move forward and take no notice of this crap. We need to stop all the pollution and chemicals we are pouring onto our land and let the moths and insects thrive again. Once if you left an outside light on it would be covered in moths and bugs but no more.
Well, well !! Climate change.
King fishers along the road, less insects and other animals.
First I have to remind people about the killing machines called Wind Turbines.
It has been proven in GB that per wind turbine approximately 100 birds/year are killed.
Insect die because they are also not able to avoid the vanes.
Wind turbines are build with concrete foundations, which of cours the hole has been dug with Electric Diggers !! Yeah right.
The vanes take Balsa wood from the Amazon, and covered with Carbon fiber which is NOT recyclable.
By the way, today I have driven a few ks in Belgium. Mist and NO wind. All the horizon poluters were doing NOTHING.
Same for the solar panels giving hardly any electricity because the mist.
Batteries ( lithium and other metals) dug up in the former Belgium Congo by children who die from the dust inhales.
Batteries NOT recyclable.
How green do we want to be???
Stop the BS about GW and CC.
Let's try to keep the planet from being polluted by plastic, paper,glass and McDonalds.
Read the articles written by Ian Bradford and start thinking about things.
Cheers, I don't even have an electric bike yet, even though my age ask for one.
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