In case you missed it I had an opinion piece published in the NZ Herald last week. It was in response to Paula Bennett (our new deputy PM) who as Climate Change Minister wrote an opinion piece for the NZ Herald in which she misled readers about the NZ emissions reduction target for the Paris Climate Agreement.
The deception may have been deliberate but possibly not because I am not sure Bennett knows very much about climate change and carbon emissions etc.
This is not core material for us but I just so sick of the misinformation that Bennett and her government spew out I had to challenge it. It is also helpful to explain in a small way how the carbon unit works (or in fact does not work) because it is the use of this discredited unit which is the heart of the problem we are trying to address. Get rid of the carbon unit and methane would not be the problem it is mistakenly deemed to be now.
The problem is that you only get so many words with these things and you need twice that many to try and explain the topic before you even get in to the point you want to make.
Article is here.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11779587
Also for the sceptics;
NIWA announced 2016 as the warmest year on record in NZ at an average temp of 13.4 degrees.
In 2013 NIWA described 2013 as the third warmest year with an average temp of 13.4 degrees. So there must have been 2 years warmer than 13.4
In 2010 MIWA said that 1998 was the hottest year with a temp of 0.9 above the average temp of 12.61 making 1998 13.5 degrees, but in 2005 they say that 1998 and 1999 were only 13.3 degrees.
So 2016 may have been the hottest year in NZ and yet again it might not have been because NIWA are obviously not too concerned with accuracy in their reports.
Also last year was warm yet the extreme weather promised us in a warmer world does not seem to be happening just yet.We had pretty settled weather up here in Northland.