OWEN JENNINGS: A new angle on an old topic

Do you remember the bad old days, flying out of Los Angeles and suddenly passing through that brown gunge ceiling, looking back and thinking, “heck, was I breathing that stuff?”  It's heaps better now.

I recall being at a conference in Taipei on a cloudless day and being unable to read signs on the buildings across the street because of the excessive air pollution.  Taiwan spent hundreds of millions to improve their factory emissions, and it worked.  Their atmosphere is much cleaner now.

Being in Mexico City in the 1990’s was an eyewatering experience.  Not from its grandeur but because it was rated the world’s most polluted city.  At a conference in 1998 a group of us were all coughing, worrying how much of the very visible, swirling particulates were going to stay in our lungs. 

The Metropolitan Environment Commission (MEC) spearheaded efforts to tackle air pollution in Mexico City through the ProAire program, collaborating with the city government and federal bodies like the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment. These initiatives have yielded significant improvements; in 2013, Mexico City earned the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group’s air-quality prize, a recognition of its achievements in cutting air pollution by over 50% despite a quadrupling of vehicles.

Even in China air pollution levels are vastly improved. Beijing, for example, reduced its annual average concentration of fine particulates (PM₂.₅) by about 63% between 2013 and 2021. Linfen, in Shanxi province, once very polluted, cut its Sulphur dioxide annual average to 10 µg/m³ — an 80% drop from 2017.

This is good news, of course, but it has another interesting sidebar.

It’s led to a much warmer world.  All that rubbish in the air over our heads was holding back the sun’s efforts to heat things up.  According to the IPCC’s latest AR6 report up to 0.5 C of warmth is a direct result of lowered air pollution, including less aerosol emissions.

What??  Are they admitting that up to half of the so called catastrophic global warming is a direct result of our cleaning up the atmosphere?  It is not so much a cars and cows’ problem after all.

Is it a big deal?  It is more an issue of misinformation, partial truth, deceptive data and exaggeration especially in the hands of a media desperately needing sensational stories to try and retain readership and advertising revenue. 

The IPCC is selective in its use of research and data but at least it doesn’t claim the world is going to hell in a handbasket or that some crucial tipping point is about to strike or that the Pacific Islands are on the final gasp, or that the latest flood, fire, storm proves global warming.

The on-going deception is pervasive and odorous.  Here are three things that you will not see in the mainstream media:

1.       NZ’s ruminant methane emissions are falling steadily which technically means there is cooling occurring.

2.       Almost every livestock farm in NZ is carbon neutral.  Farms pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere using photosynthesis than they emit, even allowing for methane being stronger than CO2.

3.       Our ruminant methane emissions are overstated by 300% to 400% by our government according to the latest science and agreed by the IPCC.

These matters are critically important to our rural community.  There was a loud clamour when the Government reduced reduction targets recently, but no one stood up and demanded facts, truth or even IPCC based data. 

Perhaps we will have to wait till the outrageous demands for reductions actually hits farmers' pockets.  Having to round up all animals 3 or 4 times a year and force a bolus down their throats is expensive and physically dangerous to animal and human.

As the Brits are finding, climate change mitigation is a great idea until energy costs went through the roof.  There is nothing like a cold hand sliding into your wallet to provoke a rebellious spirit.

Maybe there is NZ shaped, rural Nigel Farage waiting in the wings?

Owen Jennings, Former ACT MP