Tauranga resident and former climate scientist John Maunder says the politicisation of the climate change issue is ruining the debate on it. In 1985 there were about 100 people at a World Meteorological Organisation meeting which John believes is the beginning of the manmade climate change debate.

John Maunder and the weather dice.

'I was the only one from New Zealand at that meeting,” says John.
'Our job was to put climate issues to them in words the politicians can understand. In many ways I regret some of the words I wrote. Think the politicians have taken it lock stock and barrel.”
The polarisation and politicising of climate change from a debate into a belief system has seen many scientists muzzled, says John.
'It takes a bold person to be questioning the IPCC (inter-government panel on climate change) movement because if they are not in favour, they don't get much funding,” says John.
'These days there are two camps in this whole climate area. In simple terms, most of the people who are supporting man made climate change - the IPCC's argument, most of these people are working for governments round the world.
'Most governments are following what the official climate agencies are saying. The people who have a bit of concern about this are mostly like myself, who are retired. We have no axe to grind, and we are not being paid by anyone.
'We think of things differently mainly because we have seen things in the past. There's nothing new under the sun in terms of climate.”
Mark Twain said ‘climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.' John blames it on the weather dice.
The weather dice appeared on the cover of his 1986 book, 'The Uncertainty Business: Risks and opportunities in weather and climate.”
'The weather's always changing, the climate's always changing,” says John.
'The weather dice decide. Something happens to make the weather dice come down in a certain way and we would have very little control over the weather dice.”
Any committee that sets out to state how global climate is to be controlled, or an average temperature kept within two degrees, is behaving similarly to the early English King Canute who set an example for his bragging courtiers by decreeing the tide stop, to 'let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings”.
Now retired, John is an adviser for the New Zealand Climate Change Coalition, a website whose contributors audit and provide balance to the statements coming out on the global warming debate.