Guest Post: Observation Trumps the Test-tube.

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

Over the month of January I have had occasion to travel the length of New Zealand from the Bay of Islands in the north to Invercargill in the south.  In between lots of criss-crossing and visiting places large and small.  We did narrow gravel roads and main highways.  As a retired farmer I looked with interest to see what is happening in the light of claims of environmental disaster, imminent catastrophe and chaos.

Several issues became apparent.

The obvious is that New Zealand is a beautiful country, diverse, interesting and a great place to live.  It has never been truer.

Rural New Zealand looks amazing.  For the middle of summer there is not a whiff of drought.  It is green and lush from north to south.  NIWA’s promised droughts have dried up and gone.  Hay balers are working over time storing surplus feed.  Cows look in good condition, contented and producing well. Crop yields are normal or better.  The extra CO2 in the atmosphere is being put to good use down on the farm. 

Few things are more satisfying to a dairy farmer than seeing the satiated herd lying down chewing their cud.  The certain knowledge that it took as much greenhouse gas absorbed by the growing grass as the cud chewing cows are blowing back into the atmosphere is icing on this green cake.

The climate change predicted drought areas are doing just fine and the predicted wet areas are normal.  After 50 years of so-called climate change and the warmists doing their very best to claim calamity, crippling drought, species loss and desert conditions, the countryside is a luxuriant, deep green with an abundance of food production.

Despite Green zealots and MSM fantasies our rivers are in great shape.  On numerous times we stopped over crystal-clear water, observed the stones on the bottom even where it was deep.  We watched countless families in countless spots, swimming, even in Canterbury where farmers have supposedly “wrecked” the environment.  No illnesses from swimming.  ‘Dirty rivers’ was a disgusting ploy, a political construct aimed at softening up agriculture ready to be taxed.

It snowed as we emerged from the Homer tunnel on the Milford Sound road and temperatures sat at 5 degrees overnight in Te Anau in late January.   We had several days when the temperature stayed in the low teens all day.  Other days – just normal January temperatures.  Global warming?  Give me a break. Hottest month on record??  Phooey!

Trees.  We saw thousands.  Whole areas planted in natives.  Streams bordered with manuka, flax, totara, tussocks, kowhai, toe toe and more.  Odd corners, once left in scrub now planted and adding diversity, bee havens, shelter, CO2 sequestering.  There is an abundance of aesthetic plantings – plane trees, maples, acers, liquid ambers, copper beech and golden elms adding vibrancy and colour. We also observed radiata plantings sadly in the wrong place, miles from a mill or a port but the result of misguided subsidies. 

There are untouched areas, swamps, wet areas, pakihis, Q. E. National Trust covenanted areas, generously set aside, DOC preserved remnants, kahikatea stands in the Waikato, beech forests in Canterbury, rimu in the King Country and more.  My Dad, like thousands of farmers of his time, was an unashamed developer and cleared areas of bush to create a farm but left some original cover and now the balance between production and conservation is just fine.

I called on an old Federated Farmers mate down south. We shared a few “war stories”.  He is over 80 years old but sharp as a tack.  “Predictions”, he laughed, “if I had a dollar for all the predictions about farming I have heard in 80 years I could build a bank. All of them bullshit. I have heard of dairying’s demise, meat disappearing, wool being given away, soil blown out to sea, water too polluted to use, sprays killing us, trees dying, rivers drying up and much more.  The more brains those predicting have the less sense they have.  The greener they are the more crap they talk. My grandsons have a better future than I had, doing a better job, making more money and looking after their assets – land, stock – better than I did”.   You get that sort of wisdom down south!

Climate change catastrophe, tipping points, diversity loss, spoiled environments, end of the world scenarios?  What sheer, unadulterated, perverted nonsense.  Get out from behind your plush desk in your ivory tower, elitist; visit rural New Zealand, MSM editor; get out of your classroom, teacher; start telling the truth, greenie – New Zealand is in great shape.

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