Climate Change: Unfit to govern

We've just had record floods on the West Coast, and freak wind events in Auckland. Greece and Turkey are on fire. And in what seems like a blast from the past, National's climate change spokesperson is calling climate change "bullshit":

National Party MP Stuart Smith has described a government climate change plan as the "science of bullsh*t" during a talk in Ashburton this week.

Suggestions that warmer temperatures would not cause an increase in extreme rain events, contrary to the government's National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) plan were floated by the Kaikōura MP during his presentation.

Smith, who is the National Party's climate change spokesperson, confirmed that he was making official parliamentary enquiries with Climate Change Minister James Shaw around the legitimacy of the report during the meeting which sparked several heated reactions from patrons.

Smith said, in light of recent flood events in Mid Canterbury, that a Niwa flood risk study showed flooding risk would actually fall as the climate got warmer and had been ignored by the NCCRA document.

[Mid Canterbury has just had two floods in a row, one of them a 1-in-200 year event - I/S]

The claims have been sparked by a recent Tailrisks Economics report into the NCCRA who claim the report commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, was based off a false premise that climate change would cause an increase in extreme weather events and flooding.

So who wrote the NCCRA that supposedly contradicts NIWA? That would be... NIWA. Who as a science-based organisation, might actually change their mind as new data comes in. As for the question of whether to believe them or Tailrisks Economics on whether climate change causes extreme weather, hmm, an organisation of acknowledged experts in our atmosphere and weather, or a random economics consultancy who are experts in nothing except saying whatever they're paid to say? That's a very hard choice. And the fact that Smith is publicly choosing the latter shows that he is unfit for office. And by keeping him in that position, National is showing they continue to be unfit to govern.