When they eventually meet, I wonder what our new PM, John Key, will have to say to Barack Obama, the new President of the United States, about climate change?
While National backpedals on our own ETS (Emissions Trading System), Barack Obama will be moving ahead aggressively to set one up in the United States.
Meanwhile, John Key and National want to set up a forum to look at the evidence.
Obama seems pretty clear climate change is a big problem and a serious threat to the security of his country.
Obama says the science is beyond dispute. No denialist 'forums' for this leader.
See for yourself.
But it is actually about you Prime Minister
2 hours ago
Would you be against looking at the evidence?
ReplyDeleteanon: Been there and done that since before most people had even heard of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm well aware of the denialist case and why it's wrong.
It is always a difficult position knowing all the answers whilst others are still grappling with the questions.
ReplyDeleteInevitably this leads to shortcutting with phrases like "trust me, I know what I am doing", and "the opposition are denialists". While these phrases circumvent the discussion for those in a hurry, they also suggest an arrogance, a superiority of intellect, which can prove counter-productive in the big picture.
Good government is the art of taking the people with you.
Again, those in a hurry lose sight of the big picture by garnering support, in other ways, from those who do not care about the facts.
And again, ultimately counter-productive.
Anon 10:28: There is a lot of space between "knowing all the answers" and being convinced the evidence shows climate change is being driven by human factors.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons people don't know much about it is the local media - the NZ Herald, in particular, have done a deliberately poor job of covering the story.
The Herald - for electoral reasons in support of National and ACT - made much of the cost of any ETS and said nothing I can find about the cost of doing nothing.
They effectively acted as a block to the wider, detailed understanding of this issue in new Zealand, the Auckland region in particular. It's easy to blame the government, but how is the government to proceed if the monopoly media in major cities refuse to provide balanced coverage on this and many other issues as dictated by their political agenda?
The Herald have given ZERO coverage - none - to the last half-dozen major studies that make it clear human-driven climate change is well underway.
How any government can "take the people with them" on any issue in an environment like that it not clear to me.
There is some issue as to who is responsible for moderating the debate.
ReplyDeleteJournalists are not arbiters, although some may see that as their role. The Herald has no duty to report anything, however much we might wish it did. What a journalist, indeed any writer, gives us is opinion. Historians give us opinion. If we agree with them, it is factual, if not, it is a work of fiction. I imagine Michael Bassett has a shifting ground of support in his historical musings.
Is it the role of the State to supply us with the "facts"? Do we accept,or refute, such facts depending on the colour of Government? Should the taxpayer be paying to hear what the Government wants us to hear?
Private promotion, such as Al Gore's, or Michael Moore's (the US one), gain huge amounts of credence from those who view, but lose their gloss when analysts point to flaws in their arguments. Gore does not take questions.
Some people need a little longer to weigh up the balance of probabilities, and may still get it wrong. But who's wrong do they get?
Benevolent dictators are probably the best authorities, but who one man's benevolent is another man's malevolent.