A travesty of democracy

Fake public consultation, Kiwi style

From the Auckland meeting

The NZ government representative goes through the motions of consultation but has taken on my news about Shell being caught out by the Guardian admitting 4.75C is baked in and 6C is on the horizon is unsurvivable for most species on this planet

THE WELLINGTON MEETING

 The crowd at the Wellington meeting held at Wellington Girl's College

The party of officials presiding over a travesty of democracy

The Wellington meeting was a complete charade and one that not one member of the audience could not immediately see through.

There was a lot of anger directed at the fact that not one politician turned up and at the pathetic consultation document that Is full of excuses why no action should be taken. There was considerable angerat the fact that the lack of publicity and information about the meeting was designed to keep people away. People found out only through Facebook and other networks.

There were some very strongly-worded and well-directed critiques from, amongst others, economist Geoff Bertram and the Sustainability Council’s Simon Terry

One question of Mr Terry’s as to whether the advice went from officials to the minister or instructions were coming from the minister down to his officials sent the weasels on the podium into a panic and a flurry of whispered consultations. Naturally enough, no answer was forthcoming.

It was noted several times that the last time there was a meeting like this, in 2009,before the COP15 Copehagen meeting that the then-minister, Nick Smith turned up and engaged the audience - a far cry from the arrogance shown today.

There were some impassioned cries from young people, from mothers and, notably from one 17-year-old high school pupil who approached the panel and reminded them that they too were human beings.

If this wasn't consultation as we understand it it was a good example of town hall democracy, and the officials in attendence were publically shamed.

Here is a video of my own presentation at the beginning of the proceedings. As something has happened to the sound, the text of my presentation is below

Sound is restored at about 2'30

We need to start off, not by seeking solutions, but with a true and accurate assessment of the problem.

This needs to happen URGENTLY

We are told that unless we reduce greenhouse gases we will face a

dire situation BY THE END OF THIS CENTURY. This is not the actual situation.

It is far more dire than that.

The fact is that measurements by scientists in the Arctic (and now the Antarctic) are proving the computer-based IPPC models are far too conservative – in fact incorrect

We just need to look at what ‘s happening in the Arctic to see this.

Changes are happening almost in real time.

The reports coming out are more and more dire.

In short, the Arctic ice is melting and more rapidly that most of us realise.

We’re in real danger of having a Blue Sea event in the next year or so – or at least, by 2020 -where there’s no ice during part of the year - much earlier than preditions by the IPCC reports, that are talking about the end of the century.

When this happens we’ll see a rapid warming of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans.

Heat is absorbed, rather than reflected, by the sea ice.

This is called a positive reinforcing feedback - The hotter its gets the faster it gets hotter.

These feedbacks are often described as something that COULD happen in the distant future, safely beyond our lifetimes.

They are not.

I could talk about postive feedbacks-

• such as the release of methane from hydrates in the ocean or as a result of melting of the permafrost

• Or, the Amazon which is in drought, turning from a heat sink into a source of carbon

But I don’t have time for that

What  I would like to point out is this -

All of this has happened – increasing extreme weather events, a warming ocean, and increase in sea level rise

And this has happened with a .85C rise in щermperature

The atmosphere now has a concentration of over 400 ppm CO2.

If you take into account other greenhouse gasses such as methane you have a total concentration of 480 ppm.

The last time that happened we had dinosaurs, and we had the Permian extinction.

There is a 20 – 40 lag time between releasing greenhouse gasses and when we feel the effects with an increase of temperature.

What we are experiencing now, is not what we are doing now, but what we did 20-40 years ago.

That means that with 400 ppm of CO2 we already have further warming factored in, irrespective of what we do

if ever the world’s leaders DID decide to do something.

Confirmation of this came in a Guardian article just the other day in which internal documents of Royal Dutch Shell acknowledged a global temperature rise of 4C

This is the company that Barack Obama has just given the go- ahead to, to drill for oil in a melting Arctic.

In their own documents they are ASSUMING a 4C increase in global temperatures.

So, who are you going to believe?

The more pessimistic have stated that 4 -6C is simply not survivable.

These people have been proven right as every single report that comes out, almost on a weekly basis backs them up.

The IPPC with their computer-based projections of change within the next 100 years are being proven wrong – and yet that is what we are being fed.

It is time to come clean and stop sweeping reality under the carpet and acknowledge that what we have now is ABRUPT climate change – NOW, not in the future.

I have been watching this for 25 years and don’t believe any more that there is time to turn the ship around.

But I could be proven wrong

- and this country (with a bit more vision) could stand with its Pacific cousins who are already reaping the effects of abrupt climate change, along with other small nations of the world, rather than with the rich nations that are taking us into ecocide.

Better sound quality, here is Kevin Hester's submission in Auckland