I can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed.

There's a piece in today's Herald - poorly written, but with some truths about the climate in it.

What disappoints me is the responses to the article. It should be that in February 2016, coming off the back of the four warmest months in human history, with the peak concentration of CO2 for at least hundreds of thousands of years, that people accept the fact of a warming globe. New Zealanders can be blase about it, thanks to living on a group of islands that won't ever be that badly affected by the changes, but our close friends and neighbours are critically endangered.

Maybe if some of these apathetic Kiwis took their finger out of their arse for a second and gave thought to someone else, they might be able to accept that the threats to Tuvalu, Kiribati and Nauru are real and due to human pollution of the atmosphere.

I get the impression that it will take a century to get into these thick skulls. Since the inevitable outcome of climate action is impact on the packets of Joe Public, many of them have taken to the childish option of sticking their fingers in their ears and whistling really loudly.

It's pathetic.

The climate warming due to CO2 is actually endorsed by almost every scientist on the planet and the evidence grows stronger every day.

Just look at the numbers, for god's sake!

Also, remember, none of it will affect me. I'll be long dead by the time Tamaki Drive is below the high tide line, but almost everyone alive under the age of 30 right now will witness catastrophic effects of the warming climate in their lives.

Sir Peter Gluckman likens climate deniers to Holocaust deniers. In terms of facts, he is absolutely right. Not one climate denier has a single fact that disproves - or even casts questions on climate change. They repeat matras that have been proven false many times and it is known that some online climate deniers are in the pay of businesses with vested interests against climate change.

It makes me laugh that the climate deniers are often anti-vaxers (anti-Big Pharma), anti-bank, anti-Monsanto, anti-GM types, yet in this case, they are actually siding with Big Oil. That is insane and bizarre at the same time.

I go a step further than Peter Gluckman and say that climate deniers are among the most dangerous people on earth right now. From Rodney Hide to Brian Leyland to Alex Jones to David Bellamy, climate deniers are loud, obnoxious and wrong.

They are voting to kill the planet, and make no mistake, that is what is at stake here. There is a critical tipping point at which the planet would become warm enough to destroy phytoplankton, and as several studies have shown, that is the end of life on earth as we know it.

We do have a good precedent for the planet running out of oxygen; it happened in the pre-Cambrian extinction. Climate change - natural on this occasion - is a probable reason behind the Permian/Triassic extinction event, which killed 90% of all life on earth.

Humans seem to be having a good go at combining the worst elements of both.

This is a simple issue: you either believe the science or you're a moron. There is no defence for the kind of wilful stupidity that accepts the words of buffoons and charlatans as to what's going on with the climate.

At least man up about your beliefs. Nobody's saying you have to wear sackcloth and ashes if you believe the science, so feel free to not care, but don't be a moron and talk nonsense, because that's all deniers have.

 

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