Beware of Politicians who do not believe in climate change

It is Local Government election year. Candidates are in the process of announcing their candidacy and seeking your support. Candidates will come in all sorts of political shades and types.

There are right wing candidates who will claim that politics should be kept out of local government while at the same time running well funded and resourced campaigns.

I am running again under the Future West banner. This is a Labour Green Community Independent coalition. Our politics are progressive, we believe in community and we want to preserve and enhance the Waitakere Ranges.

And we all believe in climate change.

It is difficult to understand how some can still claim that climate change is a hoax.

The local area still bears the scars from two one in one hundred year storms that happened a week apart two years ago. How much more proof do you need?

We are now at the stage where we have to continue to seek reductions in emissions so that the effects are lessened. And at the same time we need to be working on adaption, making sure our infrastructure is in reasonable shape and that our resilience networks are supported and ready.

So beware of the candidate who refuses to acknowledge that the climate is going through human induced change.

They are easy to spot. When asked about climate change they will say that it is always changing, and thereby refuse to acknowledge the severity of more recent weather events.

They will talk about maintenance not resilience. They will hint darkly at some world entity driving "climate hysteria".

They will talk about academic think supercharged by a bureaucratic infatuation with computer modelling.

The first thing that someone seeking public office should display is a basic understanding of the world around us and how it is changing. If they refuse to accept that climate change is happening they do not deserve your support.

And for the record Future West candidates believe in human induced climate change and the urgent need to address emissions and to work on resilience.