Climate emergency declared

Stop the world. I really do want to get off.

Nelson and Environment Canterbury have declared ‘climate emergencies’, which means…

… that a bunch of placard waving idiots have had some kind of victory, but none of this is going to make the slightest difference to the climate.

It means that panic is being created which will result in stupid things happening, like killing off animals and agriculture unnecessarily to plant trees. There is nothing wrong with planting trees, but seedlings don’t absorb much CO2… not for 30 years or so anyway. According to warmists, we will all be dead by then.

Two ECan councillors showed a modicum of common sense, but they were drowned out by the rabble who clearly think they know best.

[Claire] McKay said ECan had “already shown its leadership in its own mitigation efforts”.

“I believe this organisation is fulfilling its obligations and what we are doing is clearly outlined in the background paper. But can we meet the wide and varied expectations of the public without funding? I’m concerned that this council hasn’t had that wider conversation to get a mandate.

Good point, Ms McKay. Placard-waving is one thing, but will the climate activists be so keen when they see a 50% hike in their rates? Of course not. They want someone else to clean up this issue for them.

“If nothing can be, or is able to be, changed, then this is a very hollow gesture. This is not a political decision, but one based on values and ethics. As a governor of this council, symbolic gestures without the ability to make many of the changes called for is simply not good governance.”

Can we vote Claire McKay for our next prime minister? Such logic and reason simply does not exist elsewhere in either local or national politics these days.

Not everyone agreed with her, though.

Cr Lan Pham?, who moved the recommendation from chief executive Bill Bayfield to declare the climate emergency and also summed up the debate, said declarations of climate emergencies around the world could be described “largely as symbolic”.

A snowball effect…

So even councillors in favour of this idiocy admit that it will achieve nothing, but they are doing it anyway.

There is no ‘climate emergency’. Nelson had terrible fires this summer, it is true, but then again, it is an area prone to drought which in turn can often result in deadly fires. Instead of taking steps to mitigate the chances of these fires happening again, which is what a responsible council would do as a priority, the council has declared a ‘climate emergency’, meaning all they have decided to do is to panic.

As these fires have occurred regularly for hundreds of years, how can the fires in 2019 suddenly be a ‘climate emergency’ when all of the others were just bush fires? The stupidity is strong here.

The stupidity gets even stronger once central government gets involved.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw agrees global warming has created an emergency, and applauded Environment Canterbury (ECan) and Nelson City councillors for taking the step.

And he revealed some MPs are in discussions about taking a similar stance on a national level.

That would require MPs to approve a motion in Parliament, as they have done in Britain and Ireland in the last few months.

The state of emergency isn’t binding and has no legal standing. But Shaw says it does have practical significance.


“It says to council offices you need to respond to this as an emergency.
“And I have to say, my own experience of being in Government over the last 18 months, is it is hard to martial the resources across Government around this overall goal unless you get a political statement that says ‘look the elected members are saying this is so serious that we are actually declaring it as an emergency and therefore we have to organise around it’.”

Stuff.

All this will do will be to create panic, which will result in a lot of stupid things being done. Most people who wave placards have no idea how their lives will be adversely affected if they actually get what they are clamouring for.

James Shaw, for example, might have to curb his little travel habit and attend climate change conferences via Skype.

Dearie me.

Declaring a state of emergency when there really isn’t one is a grossly irresponsible thing to do. Emergency situations were previously reserved for major floods, fires, droughts or terrorist attacks, which can cause immediate harm and may require control over public services and possible use of the armed forces in unexpected ways. These ‘climate emergencies’ require no such things, and are a complete nonsense.

The thing that worries me is that those in governance, both local and central, are the ones we look to for leadership at times like this, but in this case they are fanning the flames of panic, encouraging people to do stupid things. The lengths some people will go to for votes is really horrifying.

First there was peak oil, and we never actually got there. Now there is ‘peak stupid’, and we got there very fast.