Council Policy under Fire
The current trajectory of the KCDC/Coastal Advisory Panel (CAP) process designates “Coastal Adaptation Areas” (CAA) that extend from the beachfront to 2 km inland, capturing most of the Kapiti area. –Calm Alarmist Law Madness (CALM)
By Roger Childs
Plenty of concerned residents
It was standing room only as 150+ locals packed into the Ocean Road Community Centre on Tuesday evening. The meeting had been called by CALM to raise issues associated with KCDC’s egregious policy related to possible sea level rise and the impact of climate change on the Kapiti coastline. It is linked to the Jacobs’ Report which based on extreme and implausible modelling, postulates ludicrous forecasts which do not take into account what has actually happened.
The Jacobs’ Report was also related to a rocky shoreline scenario, rather than sandy beaches which dominate the Kapiti coast.
The CAP which has come up with the CAA concept was headed by Waikanae Beach resident Jim Bolger and included iwi representatives. The former prime minister justified their inclusion because “Maori had lived by the sea for centuries”! You have to wonder about having “put out to grass” politicians heading panels deliberating on highly specialized topics such as possible rising sea levels.
Speakers rejected the views of climate alarmists
All four speakers dismissed the climate change opinions espoused by the Labour and Green Parties and other activists. One speaker pointed out that so much of the global warming / rising sea level rhetoric is derived from the United Nations IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
Since the late 20th century the IPCC has been making predictions on the dire fate of the World based on ridiculous and unrealistic modelling. Back in the 1990s they postulated that by 2020, possibly earlier, the downtown areas of coastal cities like Wellington, Hong Kong and London; densely inhabited deltas such as in eastern India and Bangladesh, and Pacific and Indian Ocean islands, would be underwater. It hasn’t happened.
The IPCC has over 700 scientists working for it and before a report comes out there are usually disagreements on the detail, so the reports are often the result of major compromises ending up as a mish-mash.
The Speakers
After a general introduction there were three presentations.
- Tanya Lees, Spokesperson for CALM, spelt out the CAA policy that KCDC is considering adopting. Five CAAs have been identified. She said that using the Jacobs’ Report recommendation of factoring SSP/RCPS.5H+ for sea rise on our coastline would result in a huge area of Kapiti – 2km inland from the beachfront – being designated “at risk”. This would mean having “CAA Hazard” being put on the LIM reports of all those properties, which would make them harder to sell and result in higher insurance costs.
- Andy Oakley’s online presentation focused on the evidence showing that global warming and sea level rise is not happening on the scale climate alarmists claim. He mentioned the evidence of John Christy, a Climatologist at the University of Alabama speaking in 2015 to a Climate Change forum in Washington. He emphasized looking at the evidence of what has happened – satellite data, and weather station records – over time, rather than relying on flawed modelling. He showed through graphs and statistics that the patterns of daily temperatures, numbers of hurricanes, polar ice and other climate and weather variables, had changed little over recent decades.
- Sean Rush has a Masters in Climate Change Science and Policy, and finds that scientists who subscribe to the IPCC view on climate change are reluctant to communicate. A report related to whether Wellington is sinking has been delayed more than once. He emphasized that the IPCC’s use of sea level rise models bear no relation to observed measurements such as those from satellites. A report from a leading scientist questioning the claims of Auckland’s land subsidence, and associated amplified sea level rise, has been published with a similar one related to Wellington on its way. He said that the IPCC’s sea level rise models bear no relation to observed measurements from local tide gauges.
He has a bach at Otaki Beach which is getting further away from the sea as the sand dunes in between continue to expand and rise!
What does CALM want?
- Accountability and responsibility. KCDC needs to communicate with the community on what’s happening “in a respectful and impartial manner”.
- A true democratic process. Having in-person meetings and timely feedback, as well as having a referendum on the CAA policy.
- Urgent removal of the mapped CAAs from Council and CAP reports.
- Urgent removal of references to the Jacobs Report on LIMS.
- Support for using the internationally accepted IPCC standard for modelling sea level rise – SSP/RCP4.5
- Ratepayers contacting the Council and Councillors on how they feel about the CAA policy before May.
(See more on the CALM website: https://kapiticalm.com
Waikanae Watch supports CALM, and CRU, and their aims
We have opposed the Globalist Cabal’s view of climate change / global warming for some years and have published a number of articles on the subject – many by Ian Bradford.
Tuesday’s meeting showed that plenty of Kapiti ratepayers are not convinced by KCDC’s policies on Coastal Adaptation Zones and the concept on “Managed Retreat.”
WW supports the campaign to get local citizens to strongly express their opinions on CAA to the Council.
For those with the time, here is the full video of the meeting.
‘spose if the maori elitists want the foreshore they perhaps anticipate moving inland if there was by perchance rising sea levels. But seriously its time for a referendum on a range of things before this woke council bankrupts us all.
No rising sea levels here, in fact in relative terms the sea level has dropped slightly in recent decades.
I often wonder if these people, including Mr Bolger, get paid to write these reports that are so incorrect, that by the time the apparent effects of sea level rises occur they and all the others will not be alive to field the simple question, so you were wrong, what now?
Jim Bolger and others need to do some basic thinking. If the sea level is rising – or falling – so what? NZ has been under and above the sea on a number of occasions. On a number of occasions over thousands, indeed millions, of years, NZ has been in ice ages, mini-ice ages where glaciers flowed down valleys and then as the climate naturally warmed, the glaciers retreated and no longer exist in these valleys today. Fifteen million years ago, a sub-tropical climate existed in Central Otago, evidenced by fossils of crocodiles etc, so the climate warmed to allow that. (Reference George Gibbs, brilliant book “Ghosts of Gondwana”)
Then it cooled etc, etc., Climate change , global warming, global cooling has always been.
Distorting the picture totally is that the climate alarmists conveniently fail to tell us the amount of natural warming or natural cooling that’s happening at the moment.