Bill Thompson: Where to from here - or are we lost?

In recent years mankind has taken up a new religion, a religion led by some scientists who claim that our planet is being lost to Global Warming or Climate Change.

These scientists have given up on the former claim as it appears not to have suited their science. It was probably a figment of their imagination and did not suit their new religion.

So they concentrated on Climate Change which of course is now firmly established as the new religion. In Biblical terms, it is something like worshiping the Golden Calf, the problem Moses had to deal with.

These scientists claim all sorts of scientific reasons for believing in Climate Change. But wait, I have always understood that science is all about establishing the truth about any issue concerning science. That means science can only be established after the event—not before--or during the event, as they claim is occurring at present.

I think it is way past time to pause and think back into the past. After all, there are many lessons to learn from the past. For example, the research done on the drill samples from the Foulden Marr near Middlemarch, indicates that the world temperature was some 3 degrees warmer, over 30 million years ago. And planet earth survived and flourished.

If we go back further into the age of the dinosaur, when it is understood the world was even warmer than just those 3 degrees, and that the CO2 levels were much greater than they are today. After all they had to be, in order to provide the plant life with the means to feed the gigantic animals that existed then.

Of course those plants provided a great volume of Oxygen so that the dinosaur thrived. Nature was working as it should—in balance. And planet earth thrived.

Now let's turn our attention to the climate during those millions of years. This is just as great a mystery as today's “so called climate change”. But, if one looks around and spends time observing and thinking, there are some obvious messages or answers out there for us to read.

Firstly, let's consider the valleys of Central Otago. When one looks closely you realise the valley floor is covered to varying depths in soil that was transported there by water. Since European settlement the many floods down these valleys have NOT carried soil in amounts that would lead to further build up in depth. It is therefore fair to suggest that in the past, there were often massively heavy rainfalls in order to fill the valleys with a depth of alluvial, water borne soil.

Now let's turn our attention to the formation of the Canterbury Plains. Again, they can only have been formed by massive floods over millions of years. There had to have been rainfalls the likes of which, present man has not witnessed. The rain eroded the mountains over time and then deposited the resulting soils in the coastal waters gradually creating the flat land from Timaru to north of Christchurch.

Of course the same thing was happening in the Hawkes Bay, and the land deposited by those ancient floods has become some of the best farmland in the country. BUT, because those soils were laid down as the result of flooding, they are susceptible to very heavy rainfall. This has occurred in recent years, and like the old - never recorded - floods, they were severe and not seen in the recent past.

I am at a loss as to how the scientists can claim some knowledge of the behaviour of the climate world wide. We read of floods in Pakistan, where people have settled on floodplains - areas that have not flooded for possibly hundreds of years.

We read of big floods in the USA, the UK and now in northern Queensland. It has happened before and it will happen again, and it could happen here in New Zealand, as it most surely has in the distant past.

There is no possible reason why the climate cannot gradually swing back to how it was hundreds or thousands of years ago. That may well be happening, but no scientist can measure it scientifically, because that can only be done after the event.

Meantime, the “believers” will continue with their chant of Climate Change, as they try to indoctrinate the populace with their ideology and theory. Sadly, they have influenced some politicians - those who can't think for themselves, and are quite happy to put our economy at risk, great risk - all for the new religion.

As I stated earlier, there are lessons out there for all to see and read. This globe we are lucky enough to live on is not the fragile planet some would have us believe. It has to be so much more than that. It has survived massive upheavals and changes and survived and thrived.

Mankind can be the wrecker of all before him. But have faith, we are learning - slowly. We recognise that we are capable of destroying our planet, but we need to learn, and we are gradually doing so.

But we also have to identify the reasons for the major ‘con’ of the centuries, and the designers of it. Our people who produce something of real value, being forced to pay into a mysterious “emissions fund”, held by some faceless person or persons, simply because that producer may have produced a so-called pollutant gas, is mass stupidity.

New Zealand's contribution to global warming is something like 0.002%, while Australia is 0.004%, yet we have politicians who would destroy our economy because of their new religion - or is it ignorance?

As for scientists. We have the good, the bad and the ugly. We fail to listen to the good scientists on the subject of climate change because the bad and the uglies shout their mantra over the top of all others.

Interestingly, the Chief Scientist of Australia made the prediction 4 or 5 years ago, that Aussie would, in the near future suffer severe droughts, so much so, that city water supplies on the major Eastern cities would fail.

However, they have suffered higher rainfall ever since, including flooding. So much for his science - or was it a dream.

We must not destroy our economy to save the planet. There is not a single strand of common sense in doing so.

Our world, our planet, is surely capable of saving itself - even from us.

Bill Thompson, whose career spanned farming, rugby and politics, is retired and lives in Dunedin.