Greenpeace shows no evidence

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Greenpeace

The NZ Herald published this article recently by Carmen Gravatt, the campaigns director at Greenpeace New Zealand.

I’m not well informed on the energy scene, but I want to comment on her outrageously distorted presentation of climate change. I reserve the right to complain to the NZ Press Council about the Herald allowing her space to spread this manifest nonsense about global warming.

First she says:

… the world is about to lose the chance to stop the global average temperature from soaring – uncontrollably – beyond two degrees.

Nobody – count them: nobody – in the IPCC predicts that global temperatures will soar “uncontrollably” if they rise by 2°C. If Miss Gravatt is unaware of that fact, she is singularly unprepared for the demands of her position. Continue Reading →

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Coal not candles

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African village

This African village shows the relationship between habitation and fuel, when wood is the only choice. The few nearby trees are being left for some other purpose and the only ones available for burning are already about a kilometre away. Whatever your fuel, you need it every day and, when it’s wood, every day you must travel a little further to get more. Auckland is clothed with a verdant blanket of trees; in places you can scarcely see the houses, but only because we’ve arranged an efficient alternative source of energy. Coal and oil preserve trees. Our continued use of hydrocarbons is nothing like an “addiction”, as misguided activists like to claim. Rather, hydrocarbons are economical, healthful and, used in modern, non-polluting engines and devices, sit more comfortably in the environment than the burning of our forests. They are more deserving of applause than condemnation.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today proposed that coal, not candles, should be the symbol of Earth Hour.

It was coal that produced clean electric power which cleared the smog produced by dirty combustion and open fires in big cities like London and Pittsburgh. Much of the third world still suffers choking fumes and smog because they do not have clean electric power and burn wood, cardboard, unwashed coal and cow dung for home heat.

It was coal that saved the forests being felled to fuel the first steam engines and produce charcoal for the first iron smelters.

It was coal that powered the light bulbs and saved the whales being slaughtered for whale oil lamps. Continue Reading →

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A certain unsustainable lack of definition

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ancient farmhouse

This Cambridge farmhouse still stands after 650 years, though built without foundations (incredible!). Planning permission these days would be denied for “unsustainability.” The world is become bland.

They can’t define WHAT?

Sustainable.

Lots of people think “sustainable” is most difficult to define. I disagree: it isn’t hard to define – the word is in the dictionary. I looked it up.

Now I will tell you what it means: “sustainable” means supportable; maintainable.

“Sure, you can quote me – and it was the Shorter Oxford… No, I’m not a hero, just an ordinary bloke, anyone else would have done the same in that situation… I don’t know what the fuss is about… Yes, at the back, do you have a question?”

During the Helengrad era in New Zealand, almost every press release emanating from the Beehive was liberally sprinkled with the word “sustainable”. Meaningless bureaucratese or “apparatchik-speak” such as this usually has a short life, but “sustainable” is clinging on – much used, for example, in Phil O’Reilly’s just-published 2012 report of the Green Growth Advisory Group, which mentions some form of the word “sustainable” 67 times. And we still don’t know what the word means. Continue Reading →

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Warmth ≠ warming

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In my previous post I said that, since the temperature hasn’t gone up (much) in about 15 years, nothing has happened as a result – in short, global warming hasn’t caused anything, harmful or otherwise.

That short chain of reasoning seemed justified by the observed and documented lack of significant warming of the near-surface atmosphere around the globe during the last 15 years, and I thought the logic unassailable.

The above link shows the HadCRUT3 record, but you’ll see a very similar trajectory with the GISTEMP dataset, UAH, RSS or NCDC. All of these records show that, from about 1997, there’s been precious little warming or cooling and that the global monthly mean temperature anomaly has, in the last six months or less, steeply descended through exactly the same band through which it rose in 1997.

To repeat: because global warming hasn’t occurred for about 15 years, global warming hasn’t caused anything else to occur in that time. Very simple. Continue Reading →

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Climate change frauds unacceptable

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micrometer

Don’t tolerate the nonsense

I’ve been reading about famine in East Africa – the Great Horn of Africa, after its well-proportioned resemblance to the rhino’s horn. The Horn (nowhere near Cape Horn, bottom of South America) includes names iconic for armed insurrection and starvation: Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Mogadishu, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

East Africa is a fascinating study in its own right. The region has been subject to irregular cycles of feast and famine for thousands of years, so it’s rich with a theme much used by global warmers.

At any sign of a starving child someone can be relied upon to blame the situation on “climate change” and therefore on we wicked, wasteful westerners, never mind that not every drought causes a famine (not by a long shot) and corrupt or weak African politicians play a much stronger role in disastrous famines than climate does.

Anyone describing climate and consequent food security these days finds it necessary to refer to “climate change” and hence venture on to the IPCC tightrope strung up for global warming believers everywhere. When that happens, they quickly wobble and fall off; one just has to wait a bit.

So it proved in this research into famines in the Horn of Africa. Continue Reading →

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Rebalance the economy first

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The Herald published this gem two days ago. Well done, them. For some years our “cultural cringe” on hearing that foreigners might hold opinions of us has been, thankfully, fading as we mature. Unfortunately the new default position for many of us is that we are naturally held in some kind of universal esteem. Barry Brill here looks beyond that, pointing out that we’ve been marketing our country to ourselves, because around the world, still, few have heard of us. He also tells the government to leave marketing to the experts.

One thing is quite clear – “clean green” is not this country’s brand. It isn’t a brand at all, says a Government Advisory Group reporting on “Greening New Zealand’s Growth”.

The national brand “New Zealand” carries a collection of attributes for foreigners. Cleanliness and greenness can be amongst its positive attributes for tourism and food products in certain markets. But we need to understand the perceptions that accompany the words.

Newspapers

This is an adopted article.

The report highlights our ranking as one of “the top three cleanest countries” in terms of official corruption. This cleanliness “has definitely become part of our brand”. Fonterra notes that our brand is preferred because “New Zealand is seen as a natural safe and pure source of secure food nutrition”.

These words are readily associated with clean and unpolluted water, along with high standards of hygiene and quality control. Cleanliness and food safety go hand-in-hand. Continue Reading →

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Carbon War erupts in Europe

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A battle of world significance has started quietly in Europe. Like all battles it is about energy, resources and ideology.

In the red corner, with a coercive utopian green ideology, is Germany, strongly supported by Denmark and Britain. This group wants to forcibly wean Europe off carbon fuels by replacing them with sunbeams, sea breezes and fermented food crops. They get self-serving support from places like nuclear-powered France, hydro-powered Scandinavia and geothermal Iceland. They are now proposing more drastic cuts in Europe’s usage of carbon fuels after 2020. Continue Reading →

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Models of reality

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NZCSC chairman Barry Brill has suggested to Environment Waikato that its Regional Policy Statement (RPS) should not be influenced by the climate change ‘Guidance Manuals’ (here and here) issued by the Ministry for the Environment in early 2008. Like the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (4AR), their recommendations have been overtaken by recent scientific papers and data. His submission notes that modelled projections of 21st century warming rely upon two components – emission volumes and climate sensitivity. Here is his comment regarding Climate Sensitivity.

— by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

CLIMATE SENSITIVITY (Model Uncertainties)

1: THE IPCC REPORT

The 17 models used for the 4AR produced a 2100 temperature range of 1.8°C – 4.4°C. Note at page 122 of the Manual, “this arises from taking the best estimate temperature change, and subtracting 40% to get the low end, and adding 60% to get the high end of the range”. The “most likely” temperature trend is 2.7C per century. Continue Reading →

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Local bodies deserve better than an outdated guess

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coastal erosion

Around New Zealand, this scenario is increasingly unlikely. However, notice that this house was built upon sand. It’s fate was, therefore, entirely predictable, and has nothing to do with man-made global warming.

NZCSC chairman Barry Brill has suggested to Environment Waikato that its Regional Policy Statement (RPS) should not be influenced by the climate change ‘Guidance Manuals’ (here and here) issued by the Ministry for the Environment in early 2008. Like the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (4AR), their recommendations have been overtaken by recent scientific papers and data. His submission notes that modelled projections of 21st century warming rely upon two components – emission volumes and climate sensitivity. Here is his comment regarding future CO2-e tonnages – or, in other words, emission volumes.

— by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

1. The IPCC Report (2007)

In 1998, the IPCC commissioned consultants – economists, futurists, statisticians, demographers, etc. – to establish story-lines of how the world might develop over the following century. This group eventually brought out a detailed book, the “Special Report on Emissions Scenarios” (“SRES”) of 40 diverse story-lines, any of which might conceivably capture the emissions profile of the 21st century.

Trenberth says the IPCC itself has no view as to the correctness of the Scenarios: “They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable… There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.” Continue Reading →

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Letter to the Editor

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Carbon lies

quill pen

To the Editor
Climate Conversation

11th March 2012

The Australian government’s plan to sell their un-saleable carbon tax has hit a snag – their pollsters have discovered that the word ”carbon” provokes anger in the electorate.

This is no surprise. Most decent people hate liars and the carbon tax campaign has been mired in lies from the start. Continue Reading →

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Watch it – or the mayor gets the lamington

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pink lamingtons

Pink lamingtons

From today’s Herald:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown was the target of a lamington attack at Auckland University yesterday by an angry supporter of wharf workers.

Mr Brown was coming to the end of one of his regular Mayor in the Chair public sessions in the university quadrant when a young man with dreadlocks approached him with a pink lamington, smearing pieces of the sponge cake on the mayor’s face and shirt. The man then ran off.

He was part of a group of 10 to 15 Socialist Aotearoa members protesting against Mr Brown’s lack of support for workers in the bitter Ports of Auckland dispute where 300 striking union workers were fired by management on Wednesday.

Is this a sinister new tactic by our city’s youngest socialists, or is it simply a waste of a good lamington? Only time will tell.

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Deaf list MP bludgeons Speaker with her “human rights”

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Mojo Mathers, deaf list MP

Mojo Mathers, deaf list MP

WARNING: Rant alert. Some interesting points here are perhaps obscured now and again by a sustained rantiness. Let me know what you think.

Here’s how to get stuff you want: turn it into a “human rights” issue. Then the very Speaker of the Parliament jumps to do your bidding, though you have no electors and no electorate votes granted you a seat in the highest forum in the land. Continue Reading →

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NZCSET application for judicial review

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The subject of our court case against NIWA has surfaced again with our recent filing of papers. Ken Perrott has been quick to go on the attack but so far he hasn’t a clue what we’re actually asking for.

For the record, Ken, we’re not accusing our public climate scientists of “scientific fraud” as you claim on your blog. We’re saying (and proving) they made serious mistakes in their reconstruction of the national temperature record.

WUWT has posted a great summary of the NIWA story written by one Andi Cockroft in NZ.

This is a fresh thread for an interesting court case that’s being watched around New Zealand and the world, from all sides of the climate debate.

“RENT BOY” UPDATE, 20 May

Someone’s finally told another “rob taylor” about his namesake insulting one of us at Hot Topic. He writes in high dudgeon, claims the same name, says he has worked for Greenpeace and disowns any interest in our discussion of the environment.

On the Internet, where nobody knows you’re a dog, it’s usually best to let sleeping dogs lie. Where might this lead?

It’s odd that this new rob taylor also disdains the use of capital letters, just like the rob taylor we know and love. Must be our modern mis-education system.

This is the latest rob taylor’s comment in full. It was received on May 20, 2012 at 2:10 am.

This is rob taylor from greenpeace, the only rob taylor from greenpeace and in no way have I been involved with this debate until this point until a friend informed me of this chat, which I have not the slightest bit of interest in. I have not worked at GP in NZ since I organized the March Against Mining on Queen St in 2010, and do not intend to engage in any environment debates in NZ in the foreseeable future let alone describing people I do not know in a public forum as “rent boys”. look somewhere else please lads and do not drag mine and Greenpeaces name into your discussion.

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Winning theme soaked in ignorance

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A key argument much used by the IPCC to claim that we cause dangerous global warming is nothing but an unsophisticated display of ignorance decked out as knowledge.

Reasonable men and women must see through this subterfuge and openly deplore its use by the learned warmists running (or overrunning) the IPCC.

The argument aims to prove that only our GHG emissions cause global warming and says “we haven’t seen anything else it could be.” As it plainly admits to a complete absence of observation, and its reasoning is unpersuasive (“it must be this, for we can think of nothing else”), it will never be a leading endorsement of the age of science. Yet it was written into the AR4 in 2007 by “thousands of leading scientists” using real ink instead of crayon and became permanent.

Because of this barbarous offence against logic people now call global warming “the greatest challenge we have faced,” clamour to humbly “redistribute” our wealth around the world to atone for our “climate crimes” against vaguely-defined “undeveloped nations”, gamble with humanity’s economic future and plan alarming experiments with our planet to “save” it from warming.

You’d think all the greatest advances in human civilisation hadn’t occurred during periods of warming. But they did – during cold times we don’t develop, we die. Continue Reading →

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