It all kicked off with a great opinion piece in the Herald.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/09/nz-herald-tells-the-truth/
Peter Williams followed up on his radio show with an interview with Genter where she was totally outclassed as she deflected, distracted and denied.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/09/audio-jag-deflects-distracts-denies/
Not willing to take her slanderous allegations lying down, Troy Bowker has hit back.
He says that the response to his article was overwhelmingly positive. “It seems a silent majority of New Zealanders share my concerns and are wary of being lectured by the Green Party about the virtues of EVs.” Amen to that!
There were a number of hypocritical and rather evasive points raised by Genter this week and I think it’s important that the public are fully aware of these so she can be held accountable as a government minister.
A Newspaper
1. Scaremongering
Presented with facts about the environmental and human rights abuses associated with the production of EVs, Genter’s first reaction was to say that I was “scaremongering”.
Yet Genter also went on to imply that these issues with EVs are somehow justified to save our planet from what she says is the inevitable destruction of all life on Earth which, in 11 years’ time, will be “irreversible”.
Let’s just consider for a moment who is scaremongering and who isn’t here. […]
2. Fake news by the fuel industry
All too often the Green Party attacks anyone who disagrees with it by claiming they are a mouthpiece for the fossil fuel industry.
Genter didn’t disappoint this week. Stealing a line from Donald Trump (rather ironically) she claimed I was “parroting fake news” on behalf of oil exploration companies.[…]
3. Mining
The height of the hypocrisy of the Green policy on EVs is that EV batteries inherently rely on mining of metals and chemicals that are non-renewable. […]
4. False economics
The mining of lithium and cobalt is like a modern-day gold rush.
In years to come, the price of these materials will sky rocket. […]
To make matters worse, if we move to ethically sourced cobalt and lithium, as we most certainly should, the price of EV batteries will be astronomical.
These facts are so obvious and yet they are again ignored by the Green Party.
5. EV battery life
Another piece of misinformation is the claim by Genter that EV batteries won’t be disposed of after they start losing their charge and will be “re-purposed”. The reason why EV car manufacturers won’t warrant the batteries out after eight years or a few hundred thousand kilometres is that inevitably the EV batteries start to lose their ability to store energy. […]
Genter would have us believe that most people will choose to hoist their 500kg battery out of their EV and “re-purpose” it to be used to power “stationary devices ” such as fridges and solar panels.
The claim by Genter that the vast majority of EV batteries won’t be disposed of at this point is laughable.
6. Shipping offshore
Yes, there is an industry group looking at solutions for the disposal of millions of EV batteries.
But there is no solution at present other than shipping them offshore to large recycling facilities in Europe.
Shipping millions of dead EV batteries offshore to be somebody else’s problem isn’t exactly a sustainable solution. […]
There are a number of uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about EVs that Genter and her party need to answer and explain. Simply lecturing New Zealanders about the evils of fossil fuel and scaremongering about the planet ending is not going to cut it with the majority of voters.
Unfortunately, the counter-argument does not get sufficient air-time, column-inches or screen-pixels. It is a very one-sided narrative that the sheeple are fed and far too many are believing the lie. It is encouraging that the NZ Herald has allowed Troy to put this case forward and encouraging that he had a great response to the first article.
