A very hard sell

While your correspondent Ms Harawira’s missive (Peace to all, letters March 19) would not seem to quite live up to its title, she does, nonetheless, message that she has empathy with one Muslim. From this, using her powers of inductive logic, she implies that there has to be something of worth in the rest of the world’s (circa) 1.3 billion Muslims, and that their religion is worthy of a respect that it is not being accorded.

Yes, in a better world we would all live in a respect-based harmony, and this is certainly conceptually possible. Hopefully, with the insight that she now has into Islam, Ms Harawira will have read the Islamic Trilogy – the Koran (Q), the Sira (S) and the Hadiths(H), Mohammed’s teachings, biography and collected sayings.

If she has, then she will understand Sharia Law, the law that Islam holds that we must all submit to.

As an example, this law is now to be applied in Brunei – homosexuals and adulterers are to be stoned to death and thieves are to be de-limbed. Heaven help anyone who is guilty of all three offences.

New Zealanders are, by and large, a very compassionate people, but sometimes we may need a little prompting to actually respond with compassion; with Ms Harawira we may now have our saviour.

Given the fact that Muslims never relinquish Sharia Law, she will have an enormous challenge convincing New Zealand women of its merit, given that they can be physically disciplined (Q 4,34). Further, under Sharia Law women do not have the same status as men; they cannot be judges in a court of law, they are of inferior intelligence to men (H -Bakhari 1,6,301), and their testimony can be worth half that of a man’s.

It is men who determine how long a mother should breast-feed her child (Q 2,333). Women are also spiritually inferior to men (H -Bakhari 1,2,28), and few women get to Heaven. Those who do earn the reward by submitting to men (H -Bakhari 1,4,184).

Female circumcision is also required, and is rampant in the Muslim world. The World Health Organisation estimates that globally there are currently some 200 million such mutilated females. In Islam the ‘prize’ that a woman brings to a marriage is her vagina (B 3:31) and her value is that of a slave or a camel (Abul Dawud 11,2155).

Further, and with more general reference, both (or is it now all?) genders of Kiwis might find it difficult to accept Sharia Law given the ensuing loss of freedoms, ones that we take for granted and for which tens of thousands of us have died in an effort to preserve, e.g. freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The legislated lack of equality under the Islamic judicial system would also be a problem, since under Sharia Law there is one set of rules for Muslim males, another for Muslim females, and yet another for non-Muslims (Kafirs); our law would always be secondary to Sharia law, a law which is not allowed be interpreted or changed.

Alternatively, if we are to reduce the tensions in our country that involve Muslims, then Ms Harawira might care to pursue an alternative approach, namely, one which invites Muslims to become more flexible about their faith and show an openness to other religious or ideological positions, like those of the Christian, agnostic, apathiest, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist agnostics or whatever. If she does, then she may find that the views of former Muslims are helpful.

See, for example, Council of X Muslims of New Zealand (Australia, USA etc), or she might visit sites like that of The Apostate Preacher, visit Formermuslimsunited.org, read autobiographical accounts of incredibly brave former Muslim females like Noni Dawish Cruel and Usual Punishment and Wafa Sultan A God Who Hates.

In addition, visiting sites like www.thereligionofpeace.com/ will help her see how well Muslims are currently accepting non-Muslims. Nuclear physicist and researcher Dr. Bill Warner’s videos, in particular Why are we Afraid www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_ Qpy0mXg8Y may help with an historical appreciation of Islam.

Hopefully in her dealings with Muslims she will learn about taqiyya; we all should.

Yes, we need love and peace and tolerance, and we certainly need to move from the default option of hate for solving interpersonal relationships. Maybe Ms Harawira, with her negotiating and communication skills, along with her albeit self-proclaimed love can do what no one else has. I hope so.

K McNAUGHTON

Kaitaia Children understand how important it is that we move away from our dependence on fossil fuel, Ray Paterson writes. Rob Paterson's letter (Just do something, March 26) is just another smokescreen by the politicalisation of the recent student march protesting for the recognition, and the need for more urgent action to address climate change.

Through their learning they understand how important it is to them that we have to move away from our dependence on fossil fuel, and the changes in the way we farm to reduce methane emissions.

All of the New Zealand's political

parties recognise this, and have not been moving fast enough if we are to meet the Paris Agreement.

Rob Paterson's letter fails to question the known science behind climate change, and by criticising the students does a disservice to the cause.

RAY PATERSON

Kaimaumau 3146 participants, that as the level of active research and specialisation in climate science increased, so did agreement that global mean temperatures have risen and that human activity is a significant factor in that.

The most specialised and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) were those who listed climate science as their area of expertise, and who had published more than 50 per cent of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (see Doran/Zimmerman, 2009).

A September 2015 survey by Purdue University of nearly 700 ‘Big 10’ university scientists from non-climate disciplines showed that more than 90 per cent believed that average global temperatures were higher than pre-1800s levels, and that human activity had significantly contributed to the rise (Environmental Research Letters, Vol.10, No. 9).

The abstract included: “Respondents strongly believe that climate science is credible (mean credibility score 6.67/7)... These results suggest that scientists who are climate change sceptics are outliers and that the majority of scientists surveyed believe in anthropogenic climate change and that climate science is credible and mature.”

More recent research confirms that climate change has increased the likelihood of global temperature recordbreaking since the 1960s, and that anthropogenic influences have increased the probability of recent records being broken.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has announced that the first two months of this year are the latest in a steady global warming trend that has lasted for 410 consecutive months, and that the two-month period of January and February was the fourth-warmest that it has been since record-keeping began 140

years ago. Paul Krugman, in a New York Times opinion piece titled The Depravity of Climate-Change Denial of November 26 last year said: “Wait, isn’t depravity too strong a term? Aren’t people allowed to disagree with conventional wisdom, even if that wisdom is supported by overwhelming scientific consensus?

“Yes, they are — as long as their arguments are made in good faith. But there are almost no good faith climate change deniers. And denying science for profit, political advantage or ego satisfaction is not OK; when failure to act on the science may have terrible consequences, denial is, as I said, depraved.”

Paul Krugman has been an NYT opinion columnist since 2000, is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.

In his November 2018 article he also said: “Indeed, it’s depravity, on a scale that makes cancer denial seem trivial. Smoking kills people, and tobacco companies that tried to confuse the public about that reality were being evil. But climate change isn’t just killing people; it may well kill civilization. Trying to confuse the public about that is evil on a whole different level. Don’t some of these people have children?” ROSS FORBES

Kerikeri

One only has to read the events of the past two weeks to find devastating floods in Indonesia, a tropical cyclone considered to be the worst in the Southern Hemisphere’s history unleashing havoc in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and closer to home to see one of the heaviest 48-hour rainfall events on the West Coast of the South Island. As predicted, the occurrence of these events are with greater frequency and intensity.

To answer Bruce’s other query, where 31,000 scientists signed a petition denying global warming, I answered the same question to the Northland Age (Petition a farce) in November 2013, whereby 31,487 American scientists urged the United States government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. This petition was shown to be a farce for a number of reasons.

Most of the signers had no link to the atmospheric sciences, and had no formal training on the subject. Only about 0.1 per cent of the signers had a background in climatology. Even including atmospheric science that still only came to 0.5 per cent, showing that the vast number of the signers were completely unqualified in the area of climate science.

The petition first emerged in April 1998 by Arthur Robinson of the selfproclaimed ‘Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’. The petition’s documents were made to look like official papers from the prestigious National Academy of Science ( NAS). The article was created by three sceptics, and was not peerreviewed at all.

I recommend that Bruce and other readers who still have scepticism towards climate change look up or download Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and probably the best communicator in why it is so important we take climate change seriously. RAY PATERSON

Kaimaumau