Climate minimisation still has a foothold in media

National MP Maureen Pugh was censured by her bosses and made to walk back her words after calling man-made climate change into question earlier this week. But similar sentiments still find a platform in the media.National MP Maureen Pugh was censured by her bosses and made to walk back her words after calling man-made climate change into question earlier this week. But similar sentiments still find a platform in the media.On Tuesday, Maureen Pugh was asked whether she thought climate change was caused by humans.She replied that she was waiting for climate minister James Shaw to help her track down some evidence for the most extensively studied environmental phenomenon of the last 50 years."I am waiting on the evidence from the minister to provide that evidence," she said.The West Coast-Tasman MP was quickly rebuffed by her own party over her request for research assistance.National's deputy leader Nicola Willis kindly offered to save Shaw some trouble and lend Pugh some material from her own bookshelf."I've got a lot she can read, she's going to be doing a lot reading," she told reporters.Three hours later, Pugh had apparently skimmed enough of the evidence to convince herself that anthropogenic climate change is real after all."I regret that my comments this morning were a bit unclear and would have led some to believe that I was questioning the causes of climate change and that is clearly not my position," she said. "I accept the scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is real and there is a need to curb greenhouse gas emissions."As a National Party communications staffer stood centimetres behind her, Pugh insisted she was speaking of her own volition."These are my words," she said. "I have not been instructed to say this at all."If Pugh got the idea there's no evidence for man-made climate change, perhaps it's just because she's been listening to the output of one of our major media companies. Her initial, regrettable, statement to reporters echoed almost word for word what Leighton Smith had to say in the most recent episode of his popular NZME podcast.He recounted how he'd agreed to donate $1000 to anyone who could prove that man is responsible for climate change."Nobody would take it on. People were challenged. They wouldn't take it on. And there's a reason they wouldn't take it on: because they can't. And the same principle applies to James Shaw, who won't waste his time explaining anthropogenic global warming to people who ask him, because he can't. And he can't because there is none. No scientific established evidence."…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details