“Climate change: Rugby World Cup highlights injustice”–Silly Matt McGrath
By Paul Homewood
h/t Hotscot
Today’s silly story comes from Matt McGrath:
Ahead of the Rugby World Cup in Japan, a report from Christian Aid highlights what they term the "climate injustice" endured by Pacific island participants.
Fiji, Samoa and Tonga face an uncertain future in a warmer world, with rising seas and increased storms.
But rich rugby nations like Japan and Australia are blocking aggressive climate action, the study says.
Christian Aid says this mirrors the exploitation of the Pacific islands for their best rugby players.
The charity says that the Pacific nations are among the countries that have done the least to cause the climate crisis.
Carbon emissions per person in Samoa are just 0.7 tonnes every year but the average Australian produces 24 times more, at 16.5 tonnes.
According to figures produced by the Climate Action Tracker, which monitors the climate plans of different countries, the three Pacific island nations emit less than 1.8 million tonnes from fossil fuel use between them.
For a country like New Zealand the same figure runs to nearly 37 million tonnes.
But the islands are now experiencing some of the worst impacts of a changing climate with rising sea levels threatening land and people.
The region is likely to see more Category Three and Category Five storms in the coming decades.
There are concerns that the movement of people connected to climate change could leave these countries unable to field competitive rugby teams.
"As a Pacific island rugby player, tackling the climate crisis is close to my heart," said former Samoan international flanker Jonny Fa’amatuainu, who played for Bath as well as clubs in Wales and Japan.
"My grandparents and other families who lived in a village on the coast in Samoa moved inland two years ago because of climate change."
"The Pacific islands are the soul of our sport, and we have produced some of the most dynamic and exciting players on the planet. Yet as this report underlines, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji are all facing increased risks from rising sea levels and extreme weather."
Christian Aid says that the way that Pacific islands are treated on climate change reflects the way that world rugby has treated these countries when it comes to their best rugby players.
Current stars like England’s Manu Tuilagi or Ireland’s Bundee Aki both have Samoan connections but have moved to play with richer nations.
This is a pathway littered with greats including former internationals Jonah Lomu and Lote Tuquiri, who played for New Zealand and Australia respectively.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49741856
In reality, rugby players from Fiji and Samoa have been poached by bigger nations since residency rules were changed, I believe in the 1980s. This was compounded by the game turning professional in the 1990s.
Others like Manu Tuilagi and the Vunipolas play for England because their parents moved here decades ago.
Meanwhile the population of Fiji and Samoa have been rising steadily “despite” climate change:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/samoa-population/
It is instructive to note Christian Aid’s attitude to the players who have moved:
Christian Aid says that the way that Pacific islands are treated on climate change reflects the way that world rugby has treated these countries when it comes to their best rugby players.
Anyone would think that they had been press ganged! Obviously CA would rather Tuilagi and co went back “home” and gave up the wealth they have earned.
Mind you, the charity appear to want us all to reduce our standard of living to Pacific island levels, saying:
Carbon emissions per person in Samoa are just 0.7 tonnes every year but the average Australian produces 24 times more, at 16.5 tonnes.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
According to the BBC, anything that is happening anywhere in the world will be adversely affected in some way or another by “climate change”. The BBC has propaganda down to a fine art.
Yes, its getting tedious. I’d give up paying my license but I like some of their programmes so I’m stuck with them.
This is from a piece on John Humphrys who presented for the Today programme on the BBC for many years and has recently retired. He quickly brought out his memoirs. The piece is essentially related to Brexit but here’s a quote from Humphrys “Humphrys describes the BBC as being terrified of offending “‘fashionable pressure groups – usually from the liberal left, the spiritual home of most bosses and staff”.”
Here’s the whole piece
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/21/john-humphrys-says-bbc-simply-could-not-grasp-anyone-would-vote/
For those that don’t know, Humphrys was what you might call a pillar of the BBC Establishment so what he says is even more illuminating.
Paul, it may be today’s silly story, but the front page of the Guardian on-line is today’s silly newspaper, talk about OTT!
As usual conflating what might be happening now (see level rise) with what might happen in the future (storms). And as we know, sea levels have been rising since the Ice Age and many volcanic islands are sinking.
Just the usual Leftist propaganda from Chrustian Aid (individuals doing well are the Islands being “exploited”) given an absurd climate twist.
Many Pacific islands are rising and now have greater land area than 10yrs ago. None of these islands have suffered in the last 30yrs from rising sea levels or storms – nor are likely to. They are blessed with warm and mild climates all year so dont need to burn fuels for heating or cooling unlike unfortunates living in cold or hot countries. But Christian Aid dont care about people in cold countries.
As for the rugby migrants. NZ and Aus cant keep them out. Young boys flock to play for rich clubs and gain wealth or fame. By this articles logic only those born in Manchester should be allowed to play for Man U or city. How nasty that manchester has poached boys from Wigan or carlisle to gain wealth in their Clubs.
Thats Christian Aid added to my ever so long list of charities never to support. Indeed its becoming difficult to find any honest charity to give to – guess i’ll just donate to UKIP, since their immigration policy might stop Island boys coming to play rugby in the UK, and keep Christian aid nutters happy.
Research has been done on whole atoll groups which show the land area is a nett increase.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/pacifics-tuvalu-expanding-likely-still-habitable-in-100-years-despite-rising-sea-levels
And even research looking at how sand atolls would cope with storms and rising seas
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2019/07/16/pacific-atolls-can-adapt-to-rising-seas-and-extreme-storms—new.html
Good Morning Paul.
Are you going to file a complaint for inaccurate reporting with whoever you can. Also, please don’t laugh, how would I do so?
You can complain online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/complaints_process
Thank you Paul.
I dont think you can complain about this nonsense since BBC will say they are only ‘reporting’ what Christian Aid say. So they are being accurate in their report of an idiotic article. The real problem is BBC dont allow readers comments – when they did years ago they were laughed at and corrected so much that they stopped them. The BBC cant take criticism or even conversation.
Very true but the counter is that proper journalism requires that the claims Christian Aid make are verified and if not it is pointed out so that the reader may decide.
So, as al Beeb aren’t proper journalists they must allow their idiotic views to be criticised online. They don’t, so fake news.
Do we know the total amount of CO2 emitted/absorbed by all the world’s natural processes? Also, do we know the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? I would like to be able to express mankind’s total CO2 emissions as a percentage of those figures. I have a suspicion that it would be a very small number!
This article and associated papers give you a feel – seems your suspicion is well justified.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/earth-climate-layers/
terryfwall
Being that 90 Volcanoes were recently discovered under the Antarctic ice sheet I don’t believe anyone has a clue how much CO2 is natural and which is man made.
Not to mention that they are causing melt which lubricates the ice sheet and leads it to move faster and have more calving to occur at the edges.
And they are all along the Western Antarctic, where, surprise, surprise, all the ice sheet breaking has occurred over recent years. But the total ice extent is staying remarkably stable, despite this.
It is a conundrum, HotScot.
It is said that 96+% of carbon dioxide emissions are natural, 4-% man made.
How that can be determined is beyond me. We have no way to measure natural CO2 emissions. I presume that a look at human fossil fuel usage produces an estimate of human emissions, then that subtracted from a global total estimate yields natural emissions. Seems like a +/- 50% proposition to me.
Christian Aid should appoint an expert, unbiased scientofic adviser before making fools/knaves of themselves.
One could quote the Bible: “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” which, if obeyed, would end the climate scares.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
I do hope that all those ‘poached’ rugby players never, ever, made fossil fuel burning, CO2 causing, trips back home for birthdays, weddings, Easter, Christmas and other holidays. And they did not spend their salaries on ‘western’, climate change causing products, as gifts for families and friends back home.
After all, if we are going to do this right, we will have to do it right.
No more Rugby World Cups with all that AGW/CC causing travel and electricity use. This is the last one.
Another example of a sinister organisation wrapping itself in a comfort blanket title “Christian Aid”. Same applies to “Liberal Democrats”
It must be nice to have a lovely climate and live in pleasant surroundings. I wonder how much CO2 they expend keeping warm.
Same old wind power rubbish!
https://more.talktalk.co.uk/news/2019/09/20/offshore-wind-costs-tumble-to-new-record-lows
BEIS press release is here together with link CfD3 results.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/clean-energy-to-power-over-seven-million-homes-by-2025-at-record-low-prices
Painfull article in the Telegraph from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Definitely a Friday afternoon piece!
Same old uninformed opinions with zero facts. How much has the ocean actually risen ?? No evidence presented that it actually has which it hasn’t. What we are experiencing is weather which is in direct proportion to the activity of the sun. Cyclical weather cycles have been going on for centuries. CO2 is actually very good for the planet. Solar and wind power is a hoax which will double or triple your electricity cost while being unreliable and still will require fossil fuel backup, other wise there will be blackouts. It’s all about power, control and greed.
Both Fiji and Samoa are mountainous. I have visited both.
Rupert:
I lived in Fiji for 9 months (main island Viti Levu) and flew over in a DC3. Great view of the mountainous inland and didn’t need any convincing why a quarter of the island had never been explored on foot (I believe that has now dropped to one fifth). The other main island was even more rugged. Even Ovalau (the original site of the capital) was hilly (never been but some visitors commented about the great view there from 3,000 feet.
Sometime ago the press ran a sad story about a community on the south coast of Viti Level near the town of Navua. The ‘rising seas’ had claimed their seawall and some graves. But, there are several other communities along that same sandy stretch of coast, and none of them seemed troubled. The real problem seemed to stem from sand replenishment – or rather, lack of it. The community was located on a sandy spit near the mouth of a small river. A short way upstream, a culverted causeway (not a bridge) had been bulldozed across that small river, stemming the flow of sand out of it. The sandy spit existed solely because of the conflict between two beach replenishing flows – one up the coast, and one coming out or the river mouth. Now, without the river source on one side, the spit is unsustainable and is eroding away.
Environmentalists are shooting themselves in the foot by abandoning such hard basics as beach replenishment, to focus instead on the pie-in-sky issue of climate change (as they prefer to call it).
OT but the radio news has been giving some one sided coverage to the supposedly mass protests that are once again demanding government action on climate change.
Good grief, not content with weaponizing the kids………… have you seen this Paul?
H/T TORONT SUN via JD on Breitbart
Canadians already suspicious of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax are likely be even more suspicious given a report by Ottawa-based Blacklock’s Reporter that Environment Canada omitted a century’s worth of observed weather data in developing its computer models on the impacts of climate change.
The scrapping of all observed weather data from 1850 to 1949 was necessary, a spokesman for Environment Canada told Blacklock’s Reporter, after researchers concluded that historically, there weren’t enough weather stations to create a reliable data set for that 100-year period.
“The historical data is not observed historical data,” the spokesman said. “It is modelled historical data … 24 models from historical simulations spanning 1950 to 2005 were used.”
I dislike sometimes to ruin the thread but otherwise where do you want links sent – mate?
Look there is an existential crisis, if sea levels in the UK continue to rise as they have been for the last 120 years, then by the time these children will be drawing their pensions (probably 70) sea level in the UK will have risen by 100mm.
Ordnance Survey have been keeping a track on the mean sea level in UK for over 100 years.
https://www.ntslf.org/products/sea-level-trends
So what would be the cause of seal level beginning to rise over a hundred years ago. 100 mm = approx 4″ US not very much.
I expect that the BBC thinks all Pacific Islands are atolls. The beaches of atolls vary with storms building up coral debris ,white sand, around volcanic rocks. Some have lagoons in the middle where the volcano vented when it was under the sea millions of years ago There is an arc of volcanoes under the sea leading north from the New Zealand islands, I read recently. The Rugby players want to play for New Zealand clubs apparently. and obtain New Zealand citizenship I don’t know how many are All Blacks but judging by their names there will be quite a few.
They are wrong about most of the ‘Pacific Players’ too. These guys parents moved to NZ and Australia decades back and the young men were mostly born there. Sometimes older players went to play in UK some time back and their children born in NZ have grown up in UK . Normally these players have gone through the grades at school and played for provincial sides – being the benefit of coaching all the way.
Reverse can happen too , NZers , South Africans or Australians of English, Scottish Irish ancestry play for those countries.
Prime example of the England cricket player Ben Stokes , born in NZ ,left with his UK parents while in primary school. But all his cricket was played in England and quite rightly isnt considered ‘poached’
I shall enjoy the rugby, which thankfully is not on the BBC.
This just in from ESPN: don’t try to mix sports and politics.