Finlay MacDonald, former editor of the New Zealand Listener, uses his Sunday Star Times column to cast a few stones at carbon trading. He’s sceptical about business “going green
2 thoughts on “Fact checking Finlay”
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If temperature continues to rise aslong with sea levels, at an ever increasing pace over the next 10-20 years, it will be ‘largely proven’
Nothing is completely ‘proven’ yet and it would be quite stupid of even the most ardent AGW proponent to say so.
Macdonald’s article is quite thought provoking and timely.
Macdonald’s statement, that the case for anthropogenic climate change is “largely unproven” is simply wrong. You have to be heroic denier of the evidence to make that case. “Largely proven” is nearer the truth (the IPCC say that the evidence for recent warming is unequivocal, and that attribution to human cause is “very likely” – by which they mean greater than 90% probability of being true).
His article is certainly thought provoking, but for the wrong reasons. He confuses the “soft” market in low-quality carbon offsets with the “hard” market of Kyoto credits. Monbiot is quite right to criticise offset schemes – their poor quality is one reason why the UK govt has promised to establish standards and auditing procedures. Carbon trading is a different thing altogether, and is already central to global efforts to achieve emissions reductions.