I’ve said for a long time that the wets inside National will be the end of them. None are more wet with keen interest in woke womble-ism than Christopher Luxon. He’s now decided he needs to give MP Maureen Pugh a good finger wagging and telling off for daring to stand up to a gotcha moment from communist scribbler Marc Daalder about whether or not she is a climate denier:

National MP Maureen Pugh has refused to say she believes in man-made climate change. 

Asked if she believed in climate change caused by human actions, Pugh said she hadn’t seen evidence. 

“I have yet to see the response from [Climate Change Minister] James Shaw where one of our local councils wrote to him and asked him for the evidence.”

There’s an overwhelming international consensus that humans are causing climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

Newshub asked if she didn’t think humans are affecting climate change.

“It is not what I think. It is what I can prove. I am waiting on the evidence from the minister… I have yet to see what the evidence is that they are providing about that. “

Shaw responded by saying: “I am honestly not interested in wasting time responding to people who don’t believe in science”. 

Pugh, the National MP based in West Coast-Tasman, said she isn’t denying climate change.

She told reporters the earth has cooled and warmed over a millennia.

“If I think back to the two cyclones that we had that impacted Tasman and the West Coast in 2018, back-to-back cyclones, they are just things nature throws at us,” she said. 

“Of course I believe in climate change, I have seen the impact and the evidence of years and years of mining that shows you where the glacial moraines were over time. I have seen them over my own eyes. Climate change is real.”

Newshub

She didn’t deny it at all, but the media just love a chance to put the boot into National, especially when there is a real concern that Labour’s cyclone response is looking more and more like the hapless response to Hurricane Katrina in the USA.

Then Christopher Luxon decides he needs to out-woke the media and lay down the law effectively saying there is no difference between National and Labour, they are effectively the UniParty when it comes to climate change.

Pugh’s leader, Christopher Luxon, said climate deniers or minimalists should be “under no illusions it’s real”.

“I would be very strongly saying climate change is real and you only need to look at the events over the last 15 years, 10 years in New Zealand to see that is exactly the case,” Luxon said on Tuesday morning.

He said he was clear with his team that climate change is real and National is committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

On Monday, when speaking about Cyclone Gabrielle, he said: “If you’re a climate denier or climate minimalist, you’ve got to give it up”.

Newshub

Actually, no, we don’t have to give it up Christopher. He was aided and abetted in the attack on Maureen Pugh by other wets like Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop.

Other National colleagues Newshub spoke to were all adamant man-made climate change is real. National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis and MP Chris Bishop said they would be raising the issue with Pugh.

“I disagree with [Pugh],” said Willis. “I will have a conversation with her. The science is very clear that climate change is happening, that man-made emissions have contributed to it and this is an issue that we need to rise to.”

“Yes, obviously, man has an impact on the climate,” said Bishop. “There is no doubt about it. We have been filling the atmosphere with fossil fuels for generations now. Of course, it has an impact.”

Newshub

How dare someone not blindly follow the man-made climate change consensus. How dare they ask to see evidence. They should be made an example of and burnt at the stake for all to see.

If Luxon really does waste time on this, instead of holding the Government to account, then he is the problem, not Maureen Pugh.

According to Radio NZ he is going to chastise Pugh:

National MP Maureen Pugh has been pulled into line by the party leadership after telling reporters she has yet to see evidence humans have contributed to climate change.

That was immediately decried by leader Christopher Luxon and deputy Nicola Willis, who offered to give the MP plenty of reading material laying out the science and the evidence.

Pugh’s comments come after several severe – and increasingly ferocious – weather events, devastating large swathes of rural New Zealand and causing widespread damage in Auckland city.

Radio NZ

National under Christopher Luxon is wading its way towards losing the next election.

The message to his caucus was clear: “If you’re a climate denier or climate minimiser today, that’s just not an acceptable position,” Luxon said.

Radio NZ

Aren’t the MSM hoist by their own petard when they ask, “Do you believe in climate change?” – as if climate change is a fairy story you believe in or you don’t? The question should always be: “Do you agree that climate change is caused by human activities?” and the answer, unless you’re a greenie with no critical-thinking ability, or Luxon, should always be, “No, unless someone can produce categorical proof.”

Luxon’s position is there is no room in his caucus for “climate deniers”. Interesting. Pugh needs to stay, and her leader needs to go.

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...