The New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition

The Coalition is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization dedicated to climate science and has no political affiliation. We take a science and evidence-based approach to climate change issues.

Media release (immediate) 6 October 2006

Ministry for the Environment in the gun again over global warming

Sharp criticism has been mounted on the Ministry for the Environment over the web page information that they are providing to New Zealand school pupils about climate change.

In the widely distributed Journal of the International Zoo Educators, climate expert Professor Bob Carter has taken issue with the Ministry’s claim that “information on this website is, according to the Ministry for the Environment's best efforts, accurate at the time of publication and the Ministry makes every reasonable effort to keep it current and accurate”.

Professor Carter supported earlier criticism of the Ministry’s offerings by the NZ Climate Science Coalition at http://www.climatescience.org.nz.

He points out that the very first sentence of the climate change entry at the Ministry’s www.4million.org.nz/climatechange/understanding/index.php website reads: “Earth is getting warmer faster, due largely to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity”.

“This statement is completely false”, Professor Carter said.. “Since 1998, average global temperature has not increased at all, despite the continuing steady increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

He continued “the Ministry’s website oversimplifies highly complex scientific matters, and, like Mr Al Gore’s recent movie, gives the quite false impression that damaging human-caused global climate change is an established fact”.

“It is shocking that New Zealand children are being indoctrinated with such nonsense” said Professor Carter. “And especially so given that a lead article in today’s New Zealand Herald uncritically parrots yet more speculation about global warming from notoriously alarmist U.K. climate scientists”.

Professor Carter’s article is entitled “Cutting through the Propaganda: the educator’s responsibility?”, and can be accessed at:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_1.htm

“All New Zealand school teachers who teach environmental studies should read Professor Carter’s constructive article” said Terry Dunleavy, secretary of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

ENDS

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