Bulaman said “Bula. Check the latest over at Chiefio’s” so we did. The Chiefio says:
It looks like the only thing with black body radiation is a real black body and that transparent things, like gasses, are not quite the same. In particular, CO2 likes to heat up instead of emit a photon. Continue Reading →
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The old theme was broken by the recent small changes to the site. I replaced it with one that works, though it’s not perfect and I’ll tweak it or find a better one.
I hope it works for everyone, but please tell me of any problems you find. Getting used to a new theme is rather like moving into a new house. It takes time and you find yourself turning towards the old kitchen for a while before the habitual movement is replaced.
Of course, just as you’re getting used to it, I’ll find the perfect theme and change it all again. I don’t know how to avoid that, sorry!
For those interested, the old theme was Freshy2 and this one is Twenty Fourteen Prana. Prana is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘breath’ or ‘life breath’. I hope it breathes new life through our conversations.
If you know something about WordPress themes, feel free to recommend one you like.
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There’s another 5 km under my belt this morning; I feel gooood!
That’s the jogging, now for more blogging. Continue Reading →
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Regrettably, the blog site is still broken, even after twice deleting all the WordPress installation files and uploading them again.
WordPress volunteers are still not replying to my request for assistance. It’s frustrating and I apologise to all my readers for the inconvenience.
Still, comments are still working, so at least you can tell me what’s going on. Continue Reading →
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Still working on fixing the site within the continued exigencies of domestic life. My continued apologies.
I’m in communication with Houston, sorry, I mean the WordPress forums, and I’m hopeful a solution is near.
Really frustrating that short posts are possible but not decently lengthy ones. Suspect it’s a scripting problem. Waiting on reply from support volunteers who I think are asleep.
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Watch this space.
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Unable to post. Some commenting glitches. My apologies—I’m working on it.
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Once again, Campbell Live runs an alarmist piece on disappearing New Zealand glaciers.
Tonight they featured a climate scientist from Victoria claiming “climate change” is affecting the Franz Josef glacier. It has retreated over the last few decades.
Apparently it’s a “problem”. Actually, listening to the reporter’s tone you’d think it was a tragedy. Loss of a national icon and all that. Continue Reading →
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Dunedin councillors have decided that oil companies are responsible for global warming.
They’ve just voted for the city to sell its investments in oil extraction companies, saying the activity is unethical.
In doing this, they equate drilling for oil with other unethical pursuits, like the munitions, tobacco, gambling or pornography industries—but not, apparently, including the prostitution… err, trade profession calling sector. Nor alcohol. Continue Reading →
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The youths in Generation Zero have heard about Denmark’s tremulous venture into 100% nuclear- and fossil-fuel-free power generation and want it for New Zealand.
So who is Generation Zero? Their web site asserts they are “a youth-led organisation, founded with the central purpose of providing solutions for New Zealand to cut carbon pollution through smarter transport, liveable cities & independence from fossil fuels. We can power our homes, our industries and our economy with clean safe energy. We can build more liveable cities with greater housing and transport choices to attract the best and brightest to New Zealand. We can move beyond fossil fuels and create a safer and healthier nation by doing so.”
Their motto is striking, if enigmatic: “a future that’s not shit.” Now, I know that might sound, to some, a despondent note (and perhaps sets our national goal a wee bit short), but it surely proclaims a young elite—intellectual and well-educated, not to mention professional in engaging across the generations. Continue Reading →
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Amid all the world-wide signs of a major sea-change in climate thinking (yes, that’s a pun) comes the encouraging news that New Zealand university students prefer the truth over activist drivel. Why did we ever doubt them? Continue Reading →
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Last November the Herald said:
Plug pulled on tidal turbine projects
The tide has gone out on the New Zealand marine energy sector leaving every one of half a dozen proposed schemes high and dry. Continue Reading →
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The Herald explains that Brian Fallow is its Economics Editor, but he belly-aches and pontificates about climate change more than anyone.
I suppose he must be an economist, since he’s divertingly keen to discuss all kinds of fascinating financial and structural details of transforming New Zealand society but little concerned with evidence that might justify it.
The result is he carps noisily on a ruinous, indefensible crusade. He insists the country spend time and tax “adjusting” to a “low-carbon” economy, though he freely admits we won’t thereby affect the climate even minutely.
Worse, he won’t say why we should do it. Not really why — not scientifically, plausibly tell us the necessity for it.
Let me highlight this error of judgement by rebutting a couple of his latest points. Continue Reading →
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TV3 had another go at making us believe in scary climate change on Saturday. Oceanographer Professor Chuck Kennicutt and Otago marine scientist Professor Gary Wilson were incited, sorry, I mean interviewed by Lisa Owen (inciting was scarcely necessary with these two — for all they receive in funding they are truly grateful to dangerous man-made climate change). Continue Reading →
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Here are the facts that find the “fart tax” lax. Let’s get physical. With physics.
To northern hemispherites, climate-centred farming taxes mean little, since they affect only farmers and who cares about farmers? It’s not as though they’re important to the economy or anything.
But Kiwis knowing the abiding value of farming to their prosperous way of life say, you toucha my farmer, I breaka you face.
Here are more reasons for our politicians not to toucha my farmer. This will keepa them safe. Continue Reading →
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John Morgan, the Chief Executive Officer of NIWA, perhaps the country’s premier scientific institute, has misled the press and the people of New Zealand. He made a public claim of international recognition of NIWA’s temperature adjustment methods but refuses to provide evidence of that recognition. How can anyone believe him?
After NIWA published a review of the national temperature record (called “the Review”) in December 2010, the NZ Climate Science Coalition asked them how they adjusted the temperatures. What method did they use? It’s a reasonable question. If you knew that, you could try to replicate NIWA’s results. Replication is what science is all about. Continue Reading →
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One of our favourite Kiwi climate scientists has again made alarmist climate predictions.
The predictions come from the IPCC, but I’m sure Professor James Renwick takes responsibility for repeating them (I mean, he must have satisfied himself over their accuracy). He frequently cites the IPCC’s predictions but keeps quiet when they’re wrong. For example, when they and their computer models forecast strong warming over the last 17 years instead of the lack of warming we observe. Continue Reading →
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Bryan Leyland started the following letter, I finished it and the Herald refused to publish it.
Dear Sir,
Jill Whitmore says, “Right now, we are all standing around saying ‘I smell smoke’ and doing nothing about it.”
But it’s not true that we all smell smoke. Many scientists and informed observers want real evidence of a fire. I’ve been asking for years but so far the best “evidence” comes from uncalibrated computer models that predict fire in a hundred years.
It’s a bit early to join a bucket line. Continue Reading →
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h/t Magoo.
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Once again a national leader makes the false claim that his low-lying island nation is about to be flooded because of “climate change”. It’s not hard to show that he’s telling great big porky pies.
An article was posted on the Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) web site recently (h/t – Richard Cumming). I found the Marshall Islands government press release it was based on and in which the Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, Philip Muller, said the king tides were the latest in a series of increasingly serious and regular climate impacts. Continue Reading →
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About ten to four this afternoon Outlook went ‘bing-bong’ and a mail from NIWA arrived on my desktop. It was John Morgan, refusing my second request for publicly-owned information. The time elapsed since we first asked for it has reached 21 weeks.
Readers might remember I asked again on 20 February:
So would you please provide a copy of the scientific literature that approves of the measurement technique used by NIWA in the Review. This request is reiterated under the Official Information Act.
Here’s what Mr Morgan decided to say about it:
Dear Mr Treadgold
I write in response to your email dated 20 February 2014 indicating that you believe that my reply of 21 November 2013 did not answer the question raised in your email of 22 October 2013. Continue Reading →
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Magoo alerts us to this wonderful post by Tony Thomas at Quadrant Online. I elevate his comment to increase its visibility immediately and I hope to have time for further comment soon.
As Magoo says: “Finally, some serious questions being asked by some serious climate scientists at the American Physical Society in an open and public forum.” Continue Reading →
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From the earthquakes which devastated its previously stable landscape and brought down its vibrant CBD to horrific repeated flooding, seemingly interminable planning for a new cathedral and a firm civic belief in future catastrophic man-made sea-level rise, Christchurch certainly has problems.
They present the devil’s own difficulties if you’re living through them, but whether you’re trying to deal with them, leave them behind, or you’re simply looking on curiously from afar, you can learn about them here.
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I may never know what caused the outage, but much of the activity originated in China.
Checking on the blog late last night, my heart sank when I saw a notice in garish colours (that was bad, but it wasn’t the worst part) saying “This account has been suspended.”
Both my sites were down, along with the email. I imagined people around the world contemplating undeserved doubts about my ability to pay the bill.
Today, after webmail discussions with my hosting provider (they don’t accept telephone calls, but they are wonderfully inexpensive) and puzzling over my email settings, everything was running again.
The server software automatically suspended my sites (wordshine and fastproof) after the activity spiked to over 13 GB in just a few hours. The sites were moved to another server. What were they up to in China?
I’ll probably never find out, but I’m sorry for the disruption and it’s all back to normal. Thanks for your patience.
Well, my additional apologies!
After posting this piece explaining the outage, I went to read it online, as I usually do, just to make sure it worked properly. What further horror to discover that it and all the other posts gave a 404 Not found error!
The gremlin lay in the way WordPress codes its title links and fortunately was the work of moments to rectify, but I apologise to those who might have been frustrated all afternoon.
Well, back to the writing again!
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Today I wrote to John Morgan, CEO of NIWA, along this wise: Continue Reading →
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I thought religion was dead — for practise only behind closed doors in the privacy of one’s home — then Gwynne Dyer thunders on the pages of the Herald with a rant about “the gods of climate.” Setting an unequivocally moralistic tone, he threatens divine punishment for our sins! Thoroughly unscientific. Amazing.
Dyer often mindlessly repeats all manner of misleading science about global warming, but this time he gives the science a staunchly moral cast. Well, how else to instil a proper sense of guilt? Continue Reading →
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We’ve been “settling” for a long time, of course, but now the Green Party wants to improve our settlements.
Though we call them villages, towns and cities, the Greens go back a bit and refer to them as “settlements” as though we’re still pioneers in a virgin landscape.
This is their latest message to me, from Julie Anne Genter, Green Party MP:
Kia ora Richard [this is a Maori greeting—either they assume that I’m unable to understand English, or they signal a Luddite philosophy – RT]
We have an incredible opportunity to create ecologically sustainable, fair and thriving human settlements through good policy. Continue Reading →
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By the end of my post Salinger’s status clarified earlier today we were assured by Professor Paul Kench, the friendly Head of the School of Environment, University of Auckland, that Dr Jim Salinger is, indeed, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Auckland.
I had queried the fact because the current UofA web site no longer mentions Dr Salinger as an honorary appointment. Continue Reading →
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At times we’ve had up to ten levels of nesting in our comments but at some point I reduced it to six levels. This means that when levels run out one must scroll upwards through many screens in order to find the beginning so one can click Reply.
I’m rather firmly inclined to remove the threading altogether, as in WUWT and other popular blogs. Continue Reading →
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Last Thursday, Dr Jim Salinger published an article at The Conversation entitled An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science. In it Salinger dishonestly characterises the Coalition’s court action against NIWA as an attack on science.
Salinger is conspicuously described at the top of that article as working for the University of Auckland — but as the university’s web site doesn’t list him as working for them, it seemed to be a fabrication. Continue Reading →
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When you can’t make a proper rebuttal the only recourse is distortion.
Two months ago, in Epic fail, NIWA! Your methods are a global secret, I described how I asked John Morgan, CEO of NIWA, in the name of the Official Information Act what authority he had to say that NIWA scientists, when reconstructing the national temperature record, used methods which were “in accordance with internationally recognised methodology.”
His reply: “The judge said so.” A foolish answer, because the judge didn’t validate NIWA’s methods — he’s incompetent to do so. He freely admitted his inability to rule on the science:
[44] “…the Court is not in a position to definitively adjudicate on scientific opinions.”
Mr Morgan must have missed it. Continue Reading →
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h/t Leonard G. Mills
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A letter appeared yesterday in the NZ Herald following Professor Chris de Freitas’ article Human interference real threat to Pacific atolls two weeks ago. It was this letter: Continue Reading →
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Regular readers appreciate that one of this blog’s principal concerns is NIWA’s failure to disclose the methods it has used to adjust the raw readings behind the national temperature record—the so-called 7SS or “seven-station” series.
NIWA has persistently claimed that its adjustment methods are recognised internationally, but failed at the High Court hearing in July last year to supply evidence of international approval; the court heard only assertions from NIWA itself, which, though empty, seemed oddly to convince Mr Justice Venning of their legitimacy. Now those mendacious claims are catching up with NIWA’s CEO, John Morgan—but I get ahead of myself. Continue Reading →
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Posted on November 4, 2013, at Watts Up With That
This (17 years) is a non-event, just as 15 and 16 years were non-events. Non-events do not make headlines. Other non-events of the year are one of the fewest numbers of tornadoes (especially when corrected for under-reporting in the radar-free past) in at least the recent past (if not the remote past), the lowest number of Atlantic hurricanes since I was 2 years old (I’m 58), the continuation of the longest stretch in recorded history without a category 3 or higher hurricane making landfall in the US (in fact, I don’t recall there being a category 3 hurricane in the North Atlantic this year, although one of the ones that spun out far from land might have gotten there for a few hours). Continue Reading →
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Kennedy Graham, another Greens MP who distorts environmental facts despite his immaculate steel-grey coiffure, says in the NBR that Rodney Hide’s depiction of the Greens (‘Zombie Greens chant false science mantra’) makes selective use of facts and conclusions. He should know, he’s an expert at it—for 16 years he was one of our diplomats. Continue Reading →
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The NIWA case is to be heard before a panel of three judges at the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, Tuesday, 15 October.
The focussed grounds are that all three NIWA temperature series resulted from serious mistakes of fact, which impugned the rationality of the Crown Entity’s decisions.
The Coalition is also seeking reversal of the High Court’s costs order.
NIWA is cross-appealing. It apparently suggests that CRIs should not be subject to public law, but that CRIs are akin to SOEs. Also that NIWA’s supply of temperature research to the Crown is the result of commercial research contracts.
The judgement is likely to be reserved.
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I’ve been absent without excuse for just over five weeks—unprecedented in over eight years of climate blogging—and it feels like a lifetime. It is surely rude not to let readers know what I’m up to.
My wife Ann and I are busy readying her late Aunt Rita’s property for sale. It is nearby and completely absorbing. In about another month or so, I’ll be free to spend some time on the Climate Conversation again.
It’s delightful indeed that the conversation continues so well without me. Continue Reading →
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via Lawrence Solomon: Model mockery | Financial Post.
Top economist, a true believer in global warming, proves predictions of catastrophe are meaningless
All predictions of global warming doom and destruction rest on meaningless computer models, say climate change skeptics such as Freeman Dyson, America’s best known scientist, and Antonino Zichichi, Italy’s best known scientist. They and other skeptics looked at models touted as reliable and declared them meaningless.
Now these unabashed skeptics are joined by an unabashed true believer in rising sea levels, greater climate variability and other perils associated with global warming: Robert S. Pindyck, a physicist, engineer and Professor of Economics and Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Continue Reading →
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Once again, Rodney Hide strips away useless decoration to reveal the essence that lies beneath. This time, his target is Sir Peter Gluckman and his report on how climate change might be expected to affect New Zealand. Not now, later on. In 77 years. Here is Rodney’s article in the NBR last Saturday, Prophecy fails the scientific test (paywalled).
The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, has done us all a favour and provided a textbook illustration of the difference between science and non-science.
His recent report, New Zealand’s Changing Climate and Oceans (pdf, 634 KB), boldly predicts an average temperature increase of 2.1° Celsius by 2090. That prediction is the key give-away. It’s not science, it’s prophecy. Continue Reading →
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After extended time off to cope with a family bereavement and its aftermath, let me present insights from someone else. Perspicacious and humorous, resigned yet adamant.
Yesterday, by email to a climate forum I subscribe to, a scientist posted penetrating comments on the state of climate change understanding. The comments are too good not to circulate, so, without revealing his identity (because I haven’t asked his permission), here they are. He was responding to a radio broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) by one Tony Eggleton.
Yes, I know, we all want to listen to yet another alarmist DAGW broadcast like we want to volunteer for washing-up duties.
But this one by retired geologist Tony Eggleton, of the Australian National University, broadcast on the ABC’s premier science programme Ockham’s Razor, is worth listening to from end to end in order to understand the immensity of the task of re-education that still lies ahead of us. Continue Reading →
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When the house settles and the door jams, it’s easier and cheaper to shave the door. Preventing the ground from moving just to make the door close is overdoing it.
That’s a realistic metaphor for man’s response to global warming. The alarmists would persuade us to interfere with the soil at ruinous expense to stop the house from moving, but simply shaving the door compensates perfectly well for small kinks in the house.
A new paper, Is CO2 mitigation cost-effective? from Lord Monckton of Brenchley is a startling analysis showing that governments around the world are overdoing their response to the “threat” of global warming and could help bring a much-needed sense of perspective to the debate.
Intense pressure from the United Nations, assisted by modern Luddites in Greenpeace, the WWF and others, doesn’t conceal the inconvenient truth that global warming is too small for concern and its mitigation too expensive to contemplate. Continue Reading →
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Please discourse with untrammelled exuberance.
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Dear readers, please pardon my absence. A very dear elderly relative has been ill and passed away yesterday.
Rita was 91 years old so her death was not entirely surprising. Still, it was traumatic and she is gone.
Thank you for your patience.
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Always a low-performing, highly-priced “nice idea” and a gruelling sell, battery-powered electric cars are about to be blown off the road by the latest generation of diesel engines. Continue Reading →
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I posted a letter to TVNZ today as follows.
Dear Sirs,
Formal complaint — TVNZ News 7 July
This confirms my formal complaint emailed to you yesterday.
Concerning your TV1 news item last evening and available at http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/low-lying-island-threatened-rising-sea-levels-video-5498764, I would have imagined that a careful, experienced reporter like Barbara Dreaver, in her research, might have noticed that an earthquake occurred on Lifuka in 2006, causing a subsidence of about 23 centimetres, causing a noticeable advance of sea level and causing a single householder to abandon his house. A documentary about the island was made by Tiy Chung and posted at http://vimeo.com/53200521 seven months ago.
Still, she evidently failed to check. Continue Reading →
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Yesterday, Steven Goddard at Real Science posted a startling headline: United Nations Says That Cooling Temperatures Indicate Unprecedented Warming. But I think Steven has been deceived by Bloomberg.
Steven quoted an article at Bloomberg.com:
The planet has warmed faster since the turn of the century than ever recorded, almost doubling the pace of sea-level increase and causing a 20-fold jump in heat-related deaths, the United Nations said.
When I read this, I didn’t demur so much over the alleged doubling of sea-level rise (double the minuscule and you still have very little — little enough accuracy, for sure) or the large increase in heat-related deaths (no period was given; it sounded like, and seems to be, scare-mongering driven by highly variable data).
But I raised my eyebrows at the claim of “rapid warming” this century. Continue Reading →
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Professor Bob Carter
It can’t be over yet. When people are still being fired for not believing in global warming, it’s far from over. The war continues.
Professor Bob Carter (an expatriate Kiwi) lost his job the other day at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville. He had worked there for 31 loyal years, his professional life devoted to stratigraphy, understanding events in the deep past recorded in ocean sediments, and teaching.
Significantly, because it led to his dismissal, Bob made an honourable name for himself and earned a world-wide reputation for remaining faithful to scientific principles while analysing the outrageous predictions from global warming alarmists. He was never afraid to speak out against the alarmists and their dubious claims. Continue Reading →
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Brochure for Taxing Air. Download the pdf (986 KB).
From our good friend, the always-in-touch Val Majkus, comes a reminder about Bob Carter’s new book (which she’s ordered already!) and encouragement to pass it on to anyone you know who may be interested.
Bob says the book will be available from July 1st, and he would appreciate any support or publicity we can give it. It’s especially significant in the context of the forthcoming Australian election and the new-old PM’s just-announced ditching of the hated carbon tax.
The book has its own web site, and a Twitter account is available.
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Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are abandoning the solar industry. Their strategies resulted in debacles – their investments in solar power companies cost them billions. Compared to what investors have lost as a result of their investments in solar stocks, however, these sums are almost negligible amounts. The former stars at the stock exchange, SolarWorld and Q-Cells, have destroyed tens of billions of capital. –Thiemo Heeg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 June 2013
via latest newsletter from the Global Warming Policy Foundation – h/t Benny Peiser at the GWPF.
The following is adapted from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are abandoning the solar industry. Their strategies resulted in debacles – their investments in solar power companies cost them billions. Continue Reading →
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