Stuff has been running global warming propaganda over the last couple of weeks, with a series of stories and articles to coincide with the Polish climate talks. They have not allowed any challenges to their misinformation but I have taken them to task on a couple of the stories that related to methane and did get corrections made as a result. One incorrectly claimed little support for the separate treatment of methane in public consultation on the Carbon Zero Bill and the second related to inaccurate figures used by Andrea Vance in her story on methane and the classic mistake most make of not understanding what ‘carbon’ is.
Even though we have had a breakthrough in getting it accepted that methane emissions are different to CO2 a big stumbling block remains the inertia of decades of misinformation.
Dave Frame is a big help in overcoming this and he has a lot of credibility in this area. His position reflects, as close as you can get it, the accepted science now that in relation to impacts on atmospheric methane and its impact on temperature, reducing methane at this time is not needed, it only has to stabilize around the time CO2 reaches net zero. (sometime around 2050 supposedly)
Frame’s view is endorsed by most NZ scientists yet he has been vilified and attacked by environmentalists who don’t want to hear this stuff. They only want to hear that meat and dairy farming is bad. It is not about science for them, it’s about shutting down farming. If ever you needed more proof that global warming is just their excuse to legitimise their agenda, Greenpeace’s opposition to carbon capture in hydrogen manufacture is it.
Apparently they can produce green hydrogen using natural gas and capture all the CO2 and pump it underground so that it does not cause global warming but Greenpeace call that wrapping a turd in glitter. They don’t want to stop global warming they want to stop using gas.
So it is with cows and sheep. Frame is getting it in the neck from these zealots but what must seem like the biggest kick in the teeth for him came from Dairy NZ itself.
Dairy NZ jumped on the Stuff propaganda bandwagon to promote the idea that we need to reduce long lived gases to zero and reduce then stabilize short lived gases. Now this is nonsense from Dairy NZ. It is big progress from the previous crap they used to peddle but the science does not require methane emissions to reduce at all. The Motu report which was written by all major NZ climate scientists said of methane emissions “ they don’t need to reduce at all, they only have to stop increasing” So why are Dairy NZ saying that methane needs to reduce?
Dairy NZ is and has been hopeless on this. I have battled them for years. Their article starts by stating livestock contribute 49% of New Zealand’s emissions, but then they make the case for a different treatment for long lived and short lived gases. What they don’t understand is that you cannot say in one breath that not all carbon emissions are the same, which discredits it as an equivalence unit, and then state that livestock emissions are a problem because they contribute 49% of our emissions of the equivalence unit (carbon) your previous statement discredited.
More importantly their claim that methane needs to reduce is baseless. They are relying on a dodgy un verified, un peer reviewed, unscientific ‘note’ by Andy Reisinger which uses a simplistic mathematical model to try and replicate the atmosphere. His note has been described as embarrassing and a model that could not replicate the climate in a room let alone the planet.
Finally we make big strides in challenging the misinformation and get it accepted that methane emissions only need to stabilize and this is supported by the one person who could really make a difference for farmers (Dave Frame)and he is being hung out to dry by Dairy NZ.
Dave Frame is not taking it in the neck for farmers, he is doing it for science, but one would not blame him for thinking these farmers are their own worst enemy and it’s not worth the trouble. I hope he continues his work despite Dairy NZ, but if you are a levy payer you can perhaps tell them how much harm they are doing.
The science is pretty clear. There are certainly questions about whether methane emissions are a problem at all, but if they are a problem, then it is only emissions which increase atmospheric methane that can be that problem and stable methane emissions do not. Dairy NZ are doing a Greenpeace here, it is not about the science anymore for them, it is not about reducing emissions that may be harmful, it is about reducing emissions to appease the global warming god. Anything less is putting glitter on a turd. For those of us who have fought this for so many years we always hoped that science would win, Dairy NZ’s stance is the nightmare realized. The fight will never be won. I am quite devastated to be honest.
We’re not giving up and for us it is business as usual. We have two current complaints against James Shaw and his Ministry for providing false information and yesterday lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman over misinformation supplied by Ministry for Environment. I believe the Ministry for Environment has broken the law by producing misinformation in its Carbon Zero discussion document. More about that later.
The fight goes on, it should be won but the big problem is not the Government it is nonsense like this from Dairy NZ. If they and Beef and Lamb stopped playing politics and instead promoted the science of it all, we could all get on with our lives, but more and more our worst fears are being realized, that it was never about science at all.