While NZ five million souls are quivering in their homes, denied access to sunlight that well established natural cleanser, apparently Climate Change or as the more mature recall Global Warming, is not the clear and present danger it was earlier in the year.
You know when Shaw and his Melon mates had to travel the world in electric Cars and Planes to discuss the coming apocalypse from creating CO2.
Well today on Kiwi Blog in a guest post, Owen Jennings has some relevant comment on the actual danger that has The Melons and David Parker so worked up in their attempt to do to agriculture and horticulture, that you might have a minimal understanding about being the only bit of the NZ economy that has largely survived the socialist full on attack from the Ardernearly “pratful of clowns”, to decimate and destroy it as well.
Please only comment after reading Jennings then actually attack that and leave the messenger out of it. Feeling grumpier than usual this morning after watching the world being destroyed live on TV.
No Minister 
What a pity that the National Party was never able to make this argument in Parliament or on the hustings over the last four elections.Were they just too dumb or too cowardly? Both?BTW, you can also check out Professor Keith Woodford’s articles on NZ farming methane, starting here with Why Methane is Different. His two key observations, which are missed in Jennings article, are as follows, with the first:For many years, we have been told that agriculture contributes approximately half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gases. This supposed fact has been seared into the minds of every New Zealander who reads newspapers, listens to radio or watches television.What very few people understand is that this supposedly simple fact is based on a dodgy assumption that the effects of methane can somehow be turned into equivalent units of carbon dioxide.When methane and carbon dioxide are bundled up into units of carbon oxide equivalents, it is conventional to use a 100-year time horizon. The relative number for each gas is given as a GWP100 index figure, with GWP being shorthand for ‘global warming potential’.By definition, the GWP100 for carbon dioxide is 1. The relative value for methane, according to the latest estimate of the IPCC is 28The key point for the current discussion, however, relates to the choice of 100 years as the relevant time horizon. This is not a matter of science but a value judgement.Nice to have a scientist point that out for there's actually an awful lot of that in what we think of as science, even up to String Theory.The second observation:In the case of New Zealand’s ruminant-sourced methane, the gross emissions have been close to static for the last 30 years. This is documented in the national inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and is not controversial.Given that the average resident time of methane is believed to be around 12.4 years, we have now reached a point where the atmospheric cloud of ruminant-sourced methane is no longer growing.What this means is that net emissions of ruminant-sourced methane into the atmosphere are effectively zero. The carbon cycle is working nicely with a new balance having been reached. To the extent that global levels of methane are still increasing, they are from sources other than New Zealand’s ruminants.I think the last is the point people can grasp; CO2 emissions continue to increase because of the industrialisation of the developing countries (which is not going to stop any time soon).But our methane emissions are not growing. We’re simply using them to virtue signal to the rest of the world on international forums, such signalling being done by people with no skin in the game.Luckily they're beginning to find out that they do.
…apparently Climate Change or as the more mature recall Global Warming, is not the clear and present danger it was earlier in the year.Apparent to whom? The reason why more attention is currently being paid to an emergency with a timeframe of months than to one with a timeframe of centuries surely can't be that hard to figure out.As to Jennings' bollocks, we've been through this before. What matters is the amount of greenhouse gases present in the upper atmosphere, not what proportion of the atmosphere they are. And if Jennings genuinely believes small proportions of something can't make much of a difference, I invite him to consume cyanide to the amount of 0.00019% of his body mass and see just how little effect it has.
What matters is the amount of greenhouse gases present in the upper atmosphereAnd since you're being all scientificy what matters is that methane amounts to shit all in terms of GHG warming and NZ's methane emissions are not rising.
Tom quite right.Since 1990 and 2002 the world population of cattle has increased in size by 100 million head and as stated by scientific study there has been no increase in methane concentration anywhere in the atmosphere.CH 4 can never affect the climate period. Its not its role and there are plenty of studies to back that up.All the IPCC's projections on methane are based on mathematical models. Milt a bit like the models that predict Covid deaths!Can you see that correlation?
what matters is that methane amounts to shit all in terms of GHG warming…Says who? Scientists without a vested interest, or industry-funded lobbyists? Argument from authority is a logical fallacy, but recognising that the people profiting from something aren't the best ones to advise us on the environmental harms is not a logical fallacy, more of a good thing to keep in mind.…and NZ's methane emissions are not rising.So what? The levels are already way too high thanks to intensification of farming over the last 20 years (under both Labour and National-led governments). \”Not rising\” isn't what we need to achieve here.
All the IPCC's projections on methane are based on mathematical models.Er, yes. This method of trying to predict the future has definitely found favour over previous methods like crystal balls, reading entrails, casting tarot cards and hearing messages from God. Are you saying you find the earlier methods more credible? (Serious question, because it's hard to predict just how nuts your comments are going to get.)
Is that the same intensification in farming that has lifted millions of the worlds citizens out of crude depressing food poverty that used to deliver seemingly endless scenes of malnourished children dying in thousands?
Gravedodger yes it is that very same intensification that has lifted millions out of poverty.One only has to look at rising what and rice yields as well.After all black lives in Africa matter just as much as brown ones in India or lives in Asia.I'm very very certain that Milt would agree with that last statement of mine.Of course CO2 rising from levels that barely support life on earth have been a great aid to the plant and animal intentsification process as well because as we all know from basic science at school CO2 is a building block that has sustained life on earth.
Is that the same intensification in farming that has lifted millions of the worlds citizens out of crude depressing food poverty…Leaving aside the issue of to what extent food poverty or otherwise is down to agricultural methods rather than economics, I wasn't aware that the massive over-stocking of dairy cattle and extension of dairying onto land completely unsuited for it in NZ over the last 20 years had anything to do with alleviating food poverty in the Third World.
…as we all know from basic science at school CO2 is a building block that has sustained life on earth.What a fine demonstration of how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Phosphorus is a building block that sustains the life of your body, RosscoWlg, but will cause problems if the amount goes much beyond the tiny amount 4mg/dcl. There are plenty of other examples just relating to your own body, let alone the current ecology of the planet.
Perhaps a little more information on unsuitable land would be useful?