by Russel Norman
The folk at the NZ Institute want us to drag the chain on climate change, and the Nats are happy to climb on board this particular barbed wire canoe.
There are people like this in every country in the world, and they all say “Let’s wait to see what other people will do before we reduce our greenhouse emissions” – a fast follower. They all want their country to be the free rider on the actions of all the other countries to reduce emissions. And when you add up the collective actions of all these people, the result is that no-one takes action as they wait to follow everyone else, and climate change really gets momentum.
One way to avoid the free rider problem is to imagine that we are all citizens of the world and we all need to act together to reduce greenhouse citizens. This is the approach of the green movement.
The worrying thing is that Labour has very limited capacity to resist pressure from National and tend to fold on climate change issues – they rolled on a carbon charge and the so-called ‘fart tax’ under pressure from National in 2005. Will they fold on the Kyoto Protocol as well if National start to campaign to pull us out of it?
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Wed, October 24th, 2007
Tags: environment
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Interesting to see how long the greening of John Key lasted. An improvement on Brash (it’s hard not to be), but certainly not up there with David Cameron.
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Hope so.
We can make a difference by looking after our own backyard. Bigger problems facing NZ are reliance on imported energy, poorly insulated homes, and declining standards of living vs our trading partners. Money spent on thin air takes money away from being spent on more pressing issues, and more constructive solutions.
NZ doesn’t make a difference in terms of C02 output, but if the world is to buy into this farce, it would pay for a small vulnerable economy like ours to follow.
We can never be market makers…only sacrificial lambs.
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Russ
This is a no brainer really, we contribute 0.02 of the worlds total emissions so what harm could possibly be done by delaying the introduction of these economy wrecking measures.
We should wait and see what happens with other countries because unlike them we can afford to wait.
The desire of the Greens to rush headlong into this is what makes many of us question the real agenda when the consequences of getting it wrong are so disastrous…or perhaps that is what you really want.
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Interestingly, Guy Salmon, the main author of the National Blue-Green paper, was one of the environmental leaders who wrote to Helen Clark the other day urging her to stand firm against the business pressure to backtrack. So someone in National things the proposed scheme is the right way to be going.
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For those capable of breaking from the stampeding herd:
“…I also advance that there are strong societal, institutional, and psychological motivations for having constructed and for continuing to maintain the myth of a global warming dominant threat (global warming myth, for short). I describe these motivations in terms of the workings of the scientific profession and of the global corporate and finance network and its government shadows.
I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized. ”
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2007/02/global-warming-truth-or-dare.html
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Which of your quoted have an argument that seriously challenges the current climate science wisdom (ie at their level not ours)?
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I can just picture PEL and Bro chucking ciggy packets and Coke cans out of their car windows. After all, I’m only 0.02% of the population of my town, it can’t possibly make any difference what I do, and it’s too much effort to change my antisocial behaviour.
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Are there any average types in the Green party?
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Ah the ghost of Bruce Beetham is back to haunt us. I’m inclined to agree with you, Even, about the “power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might” being a big problem, but almost certainly not with your proposed solutions… on the other hand, your post is a fundamental non-sequitur. It’s like saying “unemployment can’t be a problem because there are people starving in Africa”, or vice-versa. Everyone has a right to choose which issues they consider most important, but if you start denying the existence of the problems others are concerned about, you just make yourself look like a marginal crackpot (and frankly you don’t need any help on that score).
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The consequence of getting it wrong, Bro (i.e. imagine, as a thought experiment, that global warming suddenly stops or reverses), is having a clean, green, sustainable economy in NZ, in a world which will be richer and less environmentally degraded than expected. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
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I agree with PEL and Alistair’s reasoning on this (immigrant receiving nations like us and Oz and Canada and the USA are disadvataged because population growth via inflow is not factored in). Nor is the amount of imported emmission (in the production of goods imported) factored in.
And there are ways to meet our Kyoto committments and build a sustainable economy here of our own independent wellbeing. If this involves people living in healthy homes and having affordable energy all the better.
For example the surplus should go into support for home energy efficiency – transfer it in annual “savings or investment” divdends which can be used for such common good purposes.
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>>I can just picture PEL and Bro chucking ciggy packets and Coke cans
More like just driving through town. It creates a tiny bit of pollution, but nothing of any real consequence in the grand scheme of things.
I suppose some people would demand we walk in the rain. Symbolic certainly, but one might get sick.
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The only way we will ever have a clean green sustainable economy is when the government leaves enough money in the pocket of business and citizens to invest in it.
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My considered take on the NZI report here…
http://hot-topic.co.nz/2007/10/24/to-boldly-follow/
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PEL and Big Bro: You might be interested in this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Even: you don’t know what you are talking about.
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Kevin… and leaves them free to make whatever choices they want eh? So Genesis Power will just spontaneously decide to stop burning coal at Huntly and invest in wind and geothermal instead, if only government leaves them alone?
You believe in spontaneous virtue from businesses, even when it costs them money? Gee. Wouldn’t it be nice.
A quote from EnergyWatch’s most recent newsletter :
http://www.energywatch.org.nz/issues/EW45_8-2007.pdf
“Contact has told its investors that the NZ electricity industry could make a 40% cut in its total GHG emissions by 2014 if Genesis Power’s coal-fired plant at Huntly was cut by more than 80% in that time.
But that scenario would require a carbon charge of at least NZ$20 per tonne of carbon dioxide to reduce Huntly’s competitiveness against new gas-fired power plants and also to make new wind and hydro-electricity projects viable.”
Sounds like the carbon tax is a vital and still absent component of a clean green future for NZ.
PEL :
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0710/S00204.htm
The Greens don’ want to force you to go walking in the rain (feeling like a woman… looking like a man? … apologies to Grace Jones). They want to offer you a choice of public transport, cycling and walking, which may well be lacking in your town, and the possibility that your next car might be electric. But nobody’s going to force you out of your car, as long as you can afford the gas.
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Nigel Calder, the FORMER editor of New Scientist, wrote an article in the UK Sunday Times, in which he stated, “When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works.? He further stated that, “Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis?. And in reference to how the media is representing those who dissent from the man-made theory he stated, “they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies?, which is exactly what I believed up until I did my research. He also wrote, “Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages…….
Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
“BUt it is rapidly recieving recognition that, while there might be a rough truth in this argument during the centutries prior to the industrial revolution consequent on the inventive period folowing the Renaissance, and culminating in the steam engine, the spinning-jenny, and so forth, thre is now a fourth factor in wealth production, the multiplying power of which far exceeds that of the other three, which may be expressed in the words of…as the “progress of the industrial arts.” Quite clearly, no one person can be said to have a monopoly share in this, it is the legacy of countless numbers of men and women, many of whose names are forgotten, and the majority of whom are dead. And since it is a cultural legacy, it seems difficult to deny that the general community, as a whole, and not by any qualification of land, labour, or captial, are the proper legatees.
But if the ownership of wealth produced vests in the owners of the factors of production, and the owners of the legacy of the industrial arts are the general community, it seems equally difficult to deny that the chief owners, and rightful beneficiaries of the modern productive system, can be shown to be the individuals composing the community, as such.
Now it is indisputable that a solution of the more immediately pressing problems with which civilisation is confronted at the present time, does in fact turn on the removal of the limitations to the distribution of wealth….”
C H Douglas “Social Credit”
http://www.democrats.org.nz
P.S. it was the Bruce Beethams of this world that gave the impetus for M.M.P. and Nuclear Free N.Z
P.S.S. if we are all Earth citizens by virtue of existing on Earth, then surely we are all milky way citizens also, and therefore shouldn’t the Green movement with their highly visible platform in private corporate media, be making the case for attention to our obligations to all the other planets in the system, and the making available of additional carbon credits to help combat and cancel out the warming effects they are also experiencing?(which they are).
P.S.S.S. one above is a joke, probably a bad one i admit, but it’s late..
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No, if coal is competitive then use it now and re-invest profits in converting to clean green industry in the sectors where it is economically viable first. Business will usually move in the direction of efficiency bcause it makes good sense. Or if not regulate to use their profits to reduce emmissions, not pay others to keep polluting – thats just like going to confession on sunday and being an a/hole for the rest of the week.
A lerge portion of the greens/labour and the like are just siezing on this stick to hit business with which make one suspect your motives as I think big bro said. If you are luddites and think some sort of alternative basket weaving organic economy is sustainable for NZ then come out and try to convince us democratically.
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Kevin : “Business will usually move in the direction of efficiency bcause it makes good sense.”
A business will generally pollute a stream with its waste if it’s the cheapest means of disposal, and if it can get away with it. Not because they are inherently evil : they are, after all, defending the interests of their shareholders, which are not necessarily identical with those of the wider community. If that community demands a clean stream, then regulation is required (or taxation, to pay for someone else to clean up the stream). If you don’t put a price on the commons, if firms aren’t obliged to internalize the costs they generate, then it’s no use criticizing them — they are just doing what comes naturally.
Burning coal to produce electricity in NZ, when it’s such an energy-rich country, is simply stupid, on a strategic level. It will cost NZ money under its Kyoto obligations, and is one of the easiest options for reducing GHGs. Pricing CO2 from electricity generation at Kyoto levels (at a minimum) is simply giving the gencos the price signal they require to modify their behaviour.
A lerge portion of the greens/labour and the like are just siezing on this stick to hit business with which make one suspect your motives as I think big bro said. That’s just plain nutty. Paranoid. Really not worth arguing about. No amount of saying “we are not luddites, not basket weavers” is going to change your mind, you clearly know us better than our mothers do.
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Nup, I think the grass roots needs to reign in the pollies like in all parties. I can only go by what your pollies say and do.
In both cases above I was looking at a hypothethical example where we need a full cost benefit analysis before making a decision and I was not factoring in Kyoto.
But seriously I cannot see how any real environmentalist could go for the “pay to clean up the stream” option. Better to signal to everyone (including business and consumers) that these practices will be phased out and let the businesses use their profits (and the money government wastes) on phasing in clean green production.
We need a holistic environment policy which I dont see from the Greens which includes climate change as the small part of human’s damage to the planet which it is. Seizing on climate change as a stick to get across envrionmental policies, merely because it has popular support, strikes me as dishonest and counterproductive.
Take the waste problem for example – I see no move to phase out bulky packaging internally (cant do it for exports I guess) and the beloved conglomerate of big businesses who do the governments bidding (BCSD) certainly were’nt behind that one.
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I know about the tragedy of the commons. However, it doesn’t explain why *we* should attempt to lead on this particular issue. It’s the young child thinking she really can lead a pack of adults just because they humour her.
I find “being green” similar to “being one with the lord”. Being a pragmatic person, I have no need for religion, nor performing symbolic acts that have high costs attached which provide little real benefit.
I’d prefer a more pragmatic approach: “Yes, we care deeply about our environment, and yes, we’ll play our part as a global citizen, but until such time as the countries which make a difference in terms of this Kyoto strategy sign up, we’ll focus our energies (!) cleaning up our own act in a constructive and meaningful way”.
I’m all for energy independence. I feel this issue cuts across party lines, and has the most chance of succeeding. I really don’t care what powers my car, so long as it is powered (let’s all just assume we’ll need cars and trucks for some time yet because the infrastructure changes needed to get rid of them will not happen anytime soon).
So, why don’t we use the money to become a hot bed of technological innovation in terms of renewable power generation? Create incentives for home insulation. Be practical.
Those things are achievable, would get most people on board, would go a long way towards improving the environment, and would improve our economy and competitive advantage.
Engaging in carbon schemes achieves very little, if anything. It is a symbolic act.
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So if we don’t go first – or second as the EU have already crossed the implementation line who does?
Why shouldn’t they adopt a “we’re right behind you” fast follower approach?
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Luke
It is entirely appropriate for the EU to go first because of their scale and the impact they can have on global emissions. There such rhetoric we are hearing can be matched by reality. For NZ the benefits of ‘leadership’ could be negative domestically and marginal to non existent globally.
It’s not like a bunch of children on a high diving board egging each other on, where the small quiet kid can embarass the others to jump by going first and showing it’s not that hard.
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um..!..speaking of greens being ‘good global citizens’..
‘slate’ has an interesting piece on the vegan vs vegetarian debate..
focussing on the environmental-footprints of carnivores..lacto-vegetarians..
..and vegans..
http://www.slate.com/id/2176420/nav/tap1/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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You’re right … New Zealanders really need to do their part to reduce New Zealand’s share of the 0.28% of the greenhouse effect that’s the fault of human activity.
If you believe the IPCC, the world is going to heat up by 4 degrees by the year 2100 – and 0.0112 degrees of that will be the fault of human emissions. As New Zealand is responsible for around 0.3% of world emissions, that means you’re responsible for a whopping 0.0000336 degrees worth of warming over the course of a century!
Surely, this is proof positive that New Zealanders need to pull together in this time of environmental tragedy, and support Al Gore for President – sorry, grant Governments more power to regulate industry and our personal lives – sorry, fight Anthropogenic Global Warming!
Yes, that’s the ticket. To re-election that is, and if like King Canute you fail in your fight against nature, there are plenty of scapegoats to take the fall.
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And now that the EU have gone should we not follow?
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Without the US and China, the scheme is pure nonsense.
I still suspect the whole AGW thing is nonsense, for reasons Duncan outlines…
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One way to avoid the free rider problem is to imagine that we are all citizens of the world and we all need to act together to reduce greenhouse citizens. This is the approach of the green movement.
So the hidden agenda behind the theory of manmade global warming finally comes to the surface, world government! i knew it all along.
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So Duncan Bayne, how do you work out that 0.28% of global warming is due to humans. Care to share with us your logic? Or some refs?
Meanwhile Nick C, have you got your tinfoil hat yet?
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http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
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Kevin:
Seizing on climate change as a stick to get across envrionmental policies, merely because it has popular support, strikes me as dishonest and counterproductive.
Sorry Kev, that’s your paranoia again, we can’t help you with that. Greens and environmenalists have been harping on global warming for several decades… it’s hardly as is we’re bandwagon jumpers… and we place it pretty high on the scale of environmental degradation… If you have different priorities, then don’t vote for us, but it’s not up to you to dictate what OUR priorities should be… don’t call us dishonest.
It’s really weird, you seem to agree with our policies, with a few differences in emphasis, so why all the suspicion?
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Insider :
“It’s not like a bunch of children on a high diving board egging each other on, where the small quiet kid can embarass the others to jump by going first and showing it’s not that hard.”
Actually, that makes a lot more sense if you take out the word “not”. Typo?
In any case, some heavyweights have already jumped : Japan is exemplary. Are we sheep, or are we chicken?
Petie:
“It’s the young child thinking she really can lead a pack of adults just because they humour her.”
Some times, the young child can shame the pack of adults into behaving decently.
Nick:
“One way to avoid the free rider problem is to imagine that we are all citizens of the world and we all need to act together to reduce greenhouse [gases]. This is the approach of the green movement.”
Wow, a lucid moment! We’re getting somewhere!
“So the hidden agenda behind the theory of manmade global warming finally comes to the surface, world government! i knew it all along.”
It’s called appropriate decision making. It’s in the Green Charter. If something can be decided locally, then it should be decided locally, without interference from a higher level. If the people of a little town decides to have a “Let’s pick up litter day”, then they don’t need instructions or interference from Wellington or the UN. Greenhouse gases, on the other hand, can only be handled on a global level. NZ’s reduction, if done unilaterally, would be an empty symbol. But backsliding when an international mechanism in place, is the moral equivalent of chucking your Coke can out the car window on “Let’s pick up litter day”.
We don’t need a world government to tell us what level of GST we should have or what side of the road to drive on. We need international bodies for problems that need to be tackled at an international level. An anarchist would say we don’t need those, nor do we need a national government : are you one of those, Nick? Personally, I (and most Greens, in fact most rational people, I expect) support the existence of international institutions when they can deal with issues that national governments can’t. Interpol. The International Atomic Energy Commission. the World Health Organisation. For or against, Nick?
Do we need a World Environmental Organisation? Hell yes.
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> Greens and environmenalists have been harping on global warming for
> several decades…
Right about when you gave up harping on global cooling, wasn’t it?
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Duncan Bayne: The web site you are referring to is deliberately deceptive. I don’t blame you for your misunderstanding of the science, as I am sure it is simply a case of you being misled without you knowing about it.
I will address some of the points you have misunderstood:
1) The IPCC report attributes most of the projected global warming over the next century to human causes. The figures that you see scientists quoting (around 4 degrees, give or take some) refers to warming as a result of increasing CO2 (and other gases) directly attributable to human activity.
2) It is true that water vapour is the major greenhouse gas, and this is almost totally of natural origin. If it were not for the greenhouse effect of water vapour, the Earth would be so cold that humans would not be able to survive.
3) There is not a simple correlation between the amount of greenhouse gases contributed by humans, and the amount of warming. There are numerous feedbacks (both positive and negative) which influence the final temperature. On one hand, increased warming might lead to more clouds, and this reduce the incoming solar radiation which reaches the surface. This is a negative feedback. On the other hand, increased temperature reduces the ocean’s capacity to hold CO2, and the released CO2 can lead to more warming (a positive feedback). Those are just two examples, there are many other feedbacks. Modern climate models try and account for many of these feedbacks, some more accurately than others. Whilst there is still much uncertainty, there is now a strong consensus that the observed global warming during the last century is mostly attributable to increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (and to a lesser extent, other gases such as methane). The increasing CO2 is directly attributable to burning fossil fuels.
One thing which gives scientists a degree of confidence in the modern climate models is that when run retrospectively, they can reproduce the global warming which has been _observed_ over the last few decades. If they can reproduce the past warming, then there is reason to believe they can project the future climate (with uncertainties, of course). It is not just luck that the climate models can reproduce the past climate. These models do not simply “fit curves”, they contain a lot of detailed physical parameterisations and dynamics which scientists have been working on for several decades.
4) You mention something about global cooling (something any reader of science fiction from the 1960s and 70s will remember well … may stories from that time were about the coming ice age). I have been to a seminar which showed some research which suggested that if it were not for human caused greenhouse warming, North America would have started heading back into an ice age about now. The research was somewhat speculative, but it highlights the possibility that human activity _may_ have staved off an ice age. It is not surprising that earlier scientists (who have had an understanding of what causes ice ages since the 1930s) entertained the possibility that the world was about to enter a new ice age.
If you have got this far down my post, I hope you might now think about going to your library (or looking on sites such as Wikipedia) for a good scientific description of the theory behind greenhouse warming.
Cheers,
Miuela
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Even, it’s extremely poor etiquette to post long screeds of someone else’s unsourced, undated prose. You should provide a link, and some supporting prose of your own. If I was running the site, I would probably delete those posts as spam.
Yeah yeah, Lindzen is one of the handful of old cranks I mentioned previously.
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Kevin : “We need a holistic environment policy which I dont see from the Greens ” — it seems you’re determined not to look.
“Take the waste problem for example – I see no move to phase out bulky packaging internally” …
Quite often people scold the Greens for not being green enough. It’s funny, because they are always wrong. Check out this page Kevin :
http://www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/waste/
Currently Nandor’s Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill (originally Mike Ward’s) is before Select Committee, and seems to have enough support to pass. It probably doesn’t get much press because, well, Greens being against waste and for recycling isn’t exactly news, is it? Except to you apparently, Kevin.
You may be particularly interested in the Extended Producer Responsibility/ Product Stewardship Scheme.
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other11227.html
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Even,
You are quoting opinion pieces where one side makes the others argument (weakly). Not as convincing as if (where you can) presenting a response from a creditable source such as Tim Lambert (+ comments)
http://tinyurl.com/yogaou
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/
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Interesting linkd jh… May I suggest another link, an excellent discussion on a New Scientist blog, on the recurring question of whether or not carbon-credit schemes and trading are a scam :
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/10/freds-footprint-cashing-in-on-carbon_23.html
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My personal view is that if I was a moderator, I would not delete any posts. The ones which currently get deleted probably discredit the author more than anything else.
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Nationals supports the idea of spreading cities further into the country…. that way house prices will fall…. has anyone considered all the costs involved in immigration, who benefits most and who benefits least?.. I think there must be a lot of people who simply get taxed more to pay for more infrastructure, and have to put up with a house along the fence. I would like to see an explanation of the benefits as they affect the whole community.. not just Rodder’s mate “Hendo”… and the boys.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10472415
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The French are now talking carbon tariffs.
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David de Rothschild(an heir of the centuries old banking family empire) agrees with Ms. Fitzsimons, climate change has moved beyond debate…..comforting yes, good livelihoods to be made here?
1.7 billion was a figure quoted in my previously delted post just from u.s. federal sources alone….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRZqiLYfug8
The proverbial foot in the door i think.
http://www.democrats.org.nz
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDsIFspVzfI
10 minute film explaining why taking no action on climate change is not an option. Watch till the end – it’s a no brainer!
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False dichotomy. See Pascal’s Wager.
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PEL – Pascal’s Wager is about faith. Climate change is about science. It is not about belief or non-belief, but about evidence.
Can any of the deniers tell me exactly quantum theory that shows that molecules with a dipole moment such as those of greenhouse gases absorb infra-red radiation and emit heat that then warms the surrounding atmospheric molecules is wrong? Or that the evidence that this happens when tested experimentally is wrong?
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toad,
Anyone can heat gases in a laboratory using IR radiation. You know as well as I do that the issues AGW critics have with AGW extends beyond the non-disputed scientific fundamentals and into issues of modeling. You are attacking a strawman argument here.
samiuela,
I haven’t read a post as condescending as yours in a while. But even if you assume 4 degrees of heating as per the IPCC, that’s still still 0.012 degrees that’s the fault of New Zealanders. Not exactly worth getting hot under the collar about is it?
SPC,
Of course the French are talking carbon tariffs – they’re just another form of trade protectionism. The Brits are talking about ‘food miles’ for the same reason: anti-capitalism and anti-globalism, dressed up as environmentalism.
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Oh, and while we’re on the topic, it’s interesting to note your use of the term ‘deniers’. Trying to draw parallels between AGW skeptics and holocaust deniers, per chance?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/on_comparing_global_warming_de.html
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Toad, the argument portrayed in the video is Pascals Wager.
The problem with his reasoning is that he is presenting a false dichotomy.
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i.e. His worst case scenario is nonsense.
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Okay, Duncan. So you accept quantum theory is correct (at least within our current scientific knowledge).
Then tell us how the modeling is wrong, rather than just asserting it is.
The deniers shift the argument, but still don’t provide the evidence.
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Duncan
Your attitude is that we should do nothing cause we don’t make a difference. We should do nothing because nothing we as individuals do will make a difference. We should do nothing because there’s all those other folks out there who aren’t doing anything so it can’t make a difference.
And you wonder that people here treat you with condescension. It is the reasoning of a 4 year old child.
The human species is in the middle of the road and is reacting to the oncoming truck like any deer caught in the headlights. Total paralysis… and your flippant response is a big part of the reasoning behind that.
“Why go through the pain” because we don’t know if we can actually avert disaster even if we try.
If we try we may fail. If we DON’T try we are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN to fail.
Lets have a guess at what that failure will look like, shall we?
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP2/WEAP2.html
That’s JUST the energy side. It doesn’t begin to address the warming.
Which looks more like this as a first and likely outcome…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1941942,00.html
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/6_week.gif
and only after a lot of pain and agony does it look like this sort of catastrophe…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/uk_enl_1185603003/html/1.stm
…but you should understand that we won’t see that. Which is why ignorance like this still survives. Our kids will see it and THEY can’t whack you after you’re dead, so you’re safe.
Not really as smart as you may think you are… but YOU are safe.
BJ
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toad,
Then tell us how the modeling is wrong, rather than just asserting it is.
Actually, the burden of proof lies upon those who assert the positive. So: the ball’s in your court, if you’d care to explain things further.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of material debunking the existing models. Try starting with: http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html
bjchip,
No, my attitude is that GW – to the extent that it is happening – is perfectly natural, that humans aren’t having a measurable effect upon it, and so it’s ludicrous to try to ‘fix’ it. Please don’t go putting words in my mouth.
You’re right to be concerned about alternative fuels – we do need something for when oil supplies dry up. But it’s simply a red herring in the context of a discussion about AGW: the need to find alternatives to fossil fuels doesn’t relate to the validity of AGW models. Stop muddying the waters.
And you wonder that people here treat you with condescension. It is the reasoning of a 4 year old child.
Yep – although I wonder if the fact that the stuff you posted doesn’t reflect my reasoning makes your comment a strawman or an ad-hominem attack?
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Duncan, the proof is in the science. Burnign fossil fuel warms the atmosphere. And farming practices that eil nitrous oxide and methan warm it much quicker than carbon dioxide emissions do.
I accept that there is no certainty about the rate than burning fossil fuels or those farming practices warm the atmosphere. There are too many non-anthropogenic factors also have potential to have an influence. Best case is that natural phenomena intervene to completely counter the effect. And they might, although the evidence would indicate they are not at the moment.
But, given that we have no idea what they might be or ability to predict when or if they might happen, I think it’s just plain stupid to take the risk. A bit like sowing seed in the desert, because eventually it will rain, although you have no idea when, when you actually need a crop for next year.
We can’t control nature’s influence on climate – only our own.
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BJ Chip, you are as smart as you think you are and it is a pretty generic characteristic to be skiting about about.
If ten men be selected at random, and problems of graded difficulty be submitted to them, it is possibly that the very simplest problem will be solved by all of them, but a point will rapidly be reached at which a decreasing minority will have any grasp of the subject at issue. In so far as the matters submitted to their judgement are no matters of precedent( and progess consists in a constant departure from precedent) it is certain that the minority or our selected team will tend to be right, and the majority will always be wrong. On matters of policy, in sharp contrast to the methods by which that policy should be carried out, the majoirty may be trusted to be right, and the minority is very frequently wrong. TO submit questions of cognate matters to the judgement of an electorate is to submit matters which are essentially technical to a community which is essentially non-technical. Broad and even philosophical issues, like is it good to have as much and many varied forms of energy made available to the public as possible for their benefit are usually kept far away from the general public. The aim of political wire-pulling is to submit only alternative measures of embodying the same policy(increased concentration of wealth and servitude to that concentration-energy in this instance).
The prime duty of a State servant is obdience-impersonalty; a surrender of individual judgement to a policy not necessarliy understood. There is a great benefit to be had from this practical world of affairs, provided that the sources from which the policy orignially proceeds are such as will stand the light of the fullest publicity; but when, as is the case at the present, the policy is derived from sources which shun publicity by every means in their power, unquestioning obdeince, so far from becoming a public duty, becomes a public danger.
-so said a wise monetary reformer- http://www.democrats org.nz-
“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the Nations will accept the new world order” David Rockefeller.
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Duncan
I pointed at drought FIRST Duncan, and I pointed at failed wheat crops. That is the legacy your arguments will leave future generations.
I added the energy shortage because the ANSWERS to both AGW and the coming shortages of energy, are (with one exception) the same answers.
=====
If we can USE UP all the fuel we found, that has been laid down in the past 20 million years, in the space of 200, don’t you think that that might be a bit unusual in terms of the natural order of things.
If the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising 50 times (no, not 50 %, 5000%) faster that it has in any part of the paleoclimate we can analyze, wouldn’t that be something you MIGHT start to notice?
If it is going up in the middle of an interglacial (not in the transition from ice age to interglacial which we know pretty well)… with no preceding massive rise in temperatures… Will you accept that it is completely anomalous to the conditions that are so frequently cited by people (not scientists) who prefer that it not be happening, and that it mean nothing.
No. You won’t.
The reason isn’t that it isn’t good science. The good science and thorough science has been done over and over again and it has been thoroughly and comprehensively rejected by one very CERTAIN ideological point of view. The Libertarian, because here is something that requires that humans actually cooperate and work together to resolve, cannot tolerate the idea.
Here is something that seems to justify the existence of government. I have had such discussions with others and I know the ideology well.
…and it isn’t science. Which is why I am not troubling myself to refute every half baked theory that is being retreaded and repeated in the service of somehow derailing the necessity that we actually DO instead of discuss longer and study further. I haven’t heard a new one offered in a year now anyway…
=====
Even… first, what is “skiting” … I am only a dumb Americano… I have no idea what that bit meant. Yes I could google it, but its late now and it’s more fun to ask.
Second… there is a good point hidden in that long post of yours and one which I actually agree with and which might even get Duncan’s grudging nod, and it is this.
When conditions become such that people are desperate enough to clamour for the powers that be to do something do ANYTHING to relieve the situation, that is the time when the worst solutions are proposed and implemented.
Which is why now would be a good time to plan and do, and later will be worse.
Though I doubt that that conclusion of mine will meet with approval from either you or Duncan
BJ
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The newscientist link didn’t work for me. Does it work for others?
Duncan
The theory that the warming is not Anthropogenic isn’t accepted any more. That theory has been challenged quite successfully. The data is in. The enemy is us.
Laying out more science for you isn’t going to change your mind.
You know it and I know it. If I thought you were able to accept this area of science as it exists I’d try to find some time to show you the errors of whatever you are reading.
This isn’t about power though there is a danger in the way it may play out, the scientists who are concerned about this are simply concerned about the warming and are in general, devoid of political agendas. Having worked with some of them, I can state quite firmly that part. Political parties may seize on this to add to their power, but the question of how it became a right-left issue in the manner it did is very curious.
Consider… the conservative movement and the Republican party in the USA and the evangelical Churches in the USA (almost the same thing)…. where’s their profit in destroying the planet or being unprepared for peak-oil or both?
Now however the oil industry owns one of the major parties and the polarization comes naturally as the corporate owners of the Democrats and Republicans come from different parts of the economy.
BJ
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It did finally work…. it just took half an hour to load.
pffft!
BJ
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More on what happens FIRST as climates change.
http://tinyurl.com/yuhl9r
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Why is nobody referring to Bjorn Lomborg’s work here? Trust the IPCC, do the cost benefit studies, and use economic growth and wealth creation and technology to cope with the problem – instead of kneecapping our economy and locking everyone into relative poverty status quo.
Of course the Euros should lead on this. Over there, someone in my trade gets paid fully twice as much as I do, and this is pretty typical (except perhaps for our bureaucrats, who are probably the most disproportionately overpaid people in our society). If they all go out and buy the latest low energy appliances, low emission vehicles, and so on, good on them. They can afford it. We can’t. That’s what comes of NOT exploiting your natural resources, hampering economic growth, and keeping everybody poorer.
And nuclear energy is the elephant in the room when it comes to Euros going carbon neutral.
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um..!..seeing as we are green-guru-name-dropping..
here are james lovelocks’ latest (grim) predictions..
and i’d have to say..mr best..
that yes..!..i too am excited by technological breakthroughs..
(the latest being honda bringing a hydrogen fuel cell car to market..
and that bloke down the line..
..who is making those wicked water-driven power-generators made out of old washing machine motors..
but somehow..in my bones..i feel that the intransigence of humanity..
and fast-melting ice-caps..
could well overwhelm them..
http://whoar.co.nz/2007/rapid-global-warming-will-create-famine-and-droughttodays-must-read/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Largely because Lomborg doesn’t give any credence to how bad it can get, treating the IPCC as a worst case, because Lomborg spent half his public career trying to diminish and degrade every effort made to correct the problems (thus gaining a huge amount of negative credibility with the green community)… partly because there’s exactly ONE way to get out of this mess and nobody has started doing it because everyone wants someone else to go first. Mass bloody paralysis …
… but Bush may be an ecological genius in disguise. If he DOES bomb Iran and lets the Turks turn on the Kurds (may not have any choice about that anyway)… the price of oil will top $120 in short order and the “oil shock” thus delivered will slam the entire world into deep recession. This would slow things down quite quickly.
Is this what you mean by “kneecapping the economy” … cause actually building alternatives to fossil fuels and forcing people to pay carbon taxes so that they consider those alternatives seriously avoids the worst of what was alluded to in the peak-energy problems that were also discussed.
Here.
Lomborg never connected all the dots. Why should we discuss his long erroneous opinions?
BJ
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Why should we discuss his long erroneous opinions?
Because not everyone agrees that they’re erroneous.
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Duncan
Without much fear of contradiction I would assert that every green here regards him as a waste of ink and electrons. Which means that we aren’t likely to discuss his work. Which was the original question…. (why we don’t).
Now you may think he’s brilliant and actually he IS pretty bright. Not particularly wise, but smart enough that he SHOULD be able to think things through a little better.
At least he has accepted that it is actually happening, and that it is likely us driving the process. He hasn’t accepted the possible costs yet, but he has COST us valuable time by his previous objections , providing fools with more tools of obstruction.
I just don’t feel any obligation to discuss him unless someone thows something specific of his up on the board…
BJ
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“It’s too late to prevent disasters caused by climate change, according to one of the world’s top environmental minds. Professor James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory which suggests the planet acts something like a single organism, said in a recent speech that reducing greenhouse gases and moving to sustainable development will not prevent the most disastrous of global warming’s effects….Lovelock is skeptical of the IPCC’s most recent report, which he calls “properly cautious.? He believes it gives the false impression that global warming is reversible with immediate action. Lovelock’s own view is somewhat apocalyptic. He suggests that 6 to 8 billion people will face crises over food and water supplies while battling an intolerable climate. He believes humans will have to adapt to the inevitable changes global warming will bring.”
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/?p=396
Enough of the cap n’ trade already. Let’s move onto the adaptation….
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There’s a lengthy thread discussing the issue here on SOLO:
http://www.solopassion.com/node/2291
Many links to papers, articles, etc. critical of AGW. Also some good old-fashioned rants
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PEL: “Enough of the cap n’ trade already. Let’s move onto the adaptation…”
I agree that there should be more focus on adaptation to climate change, we are certainly going to need it. That’s not to say that I don’t also support reducing emissions as well, the 2 need to go hand in hand.
For example, take aussie contender Kevin Rudd’s save the Barrier Reef policy launch:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7053332.stm
There’s some welcome adaptation for you. The thing is all those adaptation measures are just going to be good environmental protection measures anyway – the same basic common sense conservation and permaculture principles that Greens go on about as well. If we want to adapt to climate change then the first thing we are going to need to do is stop dumping great mounds of toxic waste everywhere and stop building strip malls on top of prime farmland and stop dairy effulent from polluting our waterways.
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and of course Rudd’s policy launch doesn’t go far enough. As Greens leader Bob Brown points out it may be tough on climate change but it’s not tough on the causes of climate change.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/29/2073892.htm
I heard an interview with Tim Flannery
http://www.globalpublicmedia.org/tim_flannery
where he discusses the alarming new report on climate change in Australia from the CSIRO. Flannery also discusses Australia’s drought and food crises, relocalization and Bjorn Lomborg’s skeptical new book on global warming. But he offers hope – he is positive that we can still prevent irreversible climate change if we drastically slash our emissions and seek to reduce to zero emissions by 2050.
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thanks for that link Duncan, it sure was interesting to read that hot bed of cranks and tin foil hat devotees.
So apparantly AGW is all a hoax because scientists want funding.
And Nicolas Sarkozy is apparantly “evil” because of his green policies.
And Lomborg is said to be a disgusting “treacherous turd” because he conceeds that man is the cause of climate change.
And apparantly us “warmers” and “believers” are running scared … “These guys must see the writing on the wall that the current scam is losing traction and is being exposed.”
Other than that it is a compendium of newspaper articles and blog articles by a diverse range of sources many of which are perfectly respectable, but most of the criticism of AGW comes in the form of comment pieces by notable skeptics.
Only a couple of sceptic scientific studies seem to be reported, but there is absolutely no mention of any of the thousands of studies that support AGW and any news story about climate change is dismissed as conspiracy – these reports are apparantly “really written by “Friends of the Earth” or some other Green left-wing think-tank”.
The actual scientific argument in there is so minimal, it is entirely the same old stuff that the denier poster boys have been filling their various comment pieces and editorials with for ages, and can all be answered with a link to realclimate or New Scientist in an instant.
I do concede that there are some reasonable arguments in there though, some thoughtful “are our priorities right pieces”, one from Lomborg and some “its too late to prevent change so why bother” ones and so on.
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but most of the criticism of AGW comes in the form of comment pieces by notable skeptics.
Which makes them unreliable in your eyes? Would you prefer that the AGW criticism came from supporters of the AGW hypothesis?
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Pel , Duncan
The fact that it may be too late to prevent bad things from happening does not absolve you from attempting to prevent even worse things.
=======
I visited that site you linked in Duncan. Is that a response to my observation about Libertarians? I wish I had the time and the patience to go through them in detail… THERE… but the actual value of the exercise would be negligible. None are so blind as those that WILL not see. Some will grow out of it. Some will not. I was once a libertarian… then I worked out the hidden blind spot in the philosophy. I think it is related in no small way, to the normal issues of being young, male and invincible. Some do come at if from being more philosophically inclined, but the weakness in the underlying assumptions becomes glaringly obvious as your experience and cynicism increases.
Of course, seeing them made me appreciate you a bit more
I won’t keep you in suspense… but the rest of this is off topic for anyone following this threads original intent.
====================
Rand made her heroes perfect and inhumanly so, which makes for a really good read but oddly enough, makes for a really badly run society. Cause real people do NOT behave that way.
The Libertarian assertion is that government is bad because IT exercises coercive powers. The corporation is bad if it exerts itself the same way but it seldom gets a nod , who prevents that coercion? The police. Individuals can’t exert coercion because of the police. That prevention is the one acceptable function of the state. Incomplete answer.
The reason that the police (and defense) are the only permitted functions of the state is that government can’t be controlled by people… it has a life of its own. Which IS a partial truth. Government is quite difficult to control.
However, if you cannot control government you cannot control ANY government, including the mob you put in charge of keeping people and corporations from coercing each other. The force IS STILL THERE. The inability to control it (if it is really true that it cannot be controlled) IS STILL THERE.
The answer to that is a robust participatory democracy… with real participation. The answer is that individuals and the society as a whole CANNOT accept an uncontrollable government and people should exert their control over government often enough that it remembers that whip.
The hole is big enough to send a Navigator through… no not that kind, the one that drives a ship… and the ship with him….
Whatever organization you use to prevent coercion HAS to be under the control of the people in the society. That means people have to control government while government controls people , in a delicate and never ending balance.
Not saying big government is good… or small. I am partial to smaller as possible. Both have their advantages and disadvantages…. I am ONLY pointing out an incompleteness.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
I don’t think we’re in serious disagreement here. The Libertarian argument (at least if you take Libertarianism as meaning minarchism – I’m deliberately discounting anarcho-capitalism here) isn’t that Government is bad, merely that it can be bad, if allowed to grow beyond its legitimate purposes. I think we’re also in agreement that people need to be directly involved in Government, and in an empowered, well-informed fashion.
After all, the cry of some of the first LIbertarians was “no taxation without representation”
It’s worth noting that Rand was also quite happy to accept collective legislation if the problem was collective – such as, to use her example, atmospheric pollution.
“As far as the issue of actual pollution is concerned, it is primarily a scientific, not a political, problem. In regard to the political principle involved: if a man creates a physical danger or harm to others, which extends beyond the line of his own property, such as unsanitary conditions or even noise, and if this is proved, the law can and does hold him responsible. If the condition is collective, such as in an overcrowded city, appropriate and objective laws can be defined, protecting the rights of all involved–as was done in the case of oil rights, air-space rights, etc. But such laws cannot demand the impossible, must not be aimed at a single scapegoat, i.e., the industrialists, and must take into consideration the whole extent of the problem, i.e., the absolute necessity of the continued existence of industry–if the preservation of human life is the standard.”
In short: I agree with this. I don’t have a problem with environmental laws per se. I have a problem with laws surrounding AGW, because it is unproved, and even if AGW is taken as gospel, there is still argument as to whether there is a net benefit to humans from it.
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I often ask myself the question: What motivates the “climate change skeptics”, in the face of a very large amount of scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate?
Those who argue that there is not much evidence for human caused climate change must simply be unaware of what most of the climate research for the last 10 or 15 years has been showing, or alternatively, be telling lies.
I like conspiracy theories, but to claim that all, or even a significant number, of climate scientists have been corrupted by a desire to get more funding is just ludicrous. If I was a scientist who was aware of compelling evidence that suggested climate change was not being caused by humans, I would have no trouble getting as much funding as I wanted. The fact that this isn’t happening suggests to me there is no conspiracy amongst climate scientists (aside from the fact that most scientists would find it morally and ethically wrong to distort results in order to get funding).
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samiuela, basicly it comes down to the old adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” The big question is whether this applies more to alarmists or denialists. And whether it is alarmists or denialists who are most blinkered by their beliefs or idealogical frameworks.
But probably most important is whether what we don’t know about climate behaviour is more significant than what we do know. And we wont know that till we know what we don’t know.
When we move from the scientific to the politic is when we all need to be skeptics. Politics has a long history of imposing “solutions” that address the political problem rather than the actual problem. All too often this results in simplistic “solutions” to complex problems. Such as having one speed limit for municipalities and another for counties, instead of a system of limits based on known risk factors, as advocated by highway engineers since the 1930s.
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Stuey, I agree.
There is a lot we can do to clean up our environment. Most New Zealanders would agree, I’m sure. It’s a shame all the focus is on Kyoto, a scheme in which we can make no measurable difference, and which will drain our resources. Those resources could be devoted to, say, developing new energy systems and IP, insulating houses, cleaning up rivers, etc.
My opinion is that the symbolic act of Kyoto has a high opportunity cost for New Zealand attached to it. Too much mental energy is going into an abstraction, and not into practical solutions.
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>>I often ask myself the question: What motivates the “climate change >>skeptics?, in the face of a very large amount of scientific evidence that >>humans are affecting the climate?
Because the science isn’t proven.
There are various scenarios, but lets assume AGW is real.
Can man really do anything to stop it? If not, wouldn’t it be better to adapt to it?
Is it so terrible, really? Many scientists disagree on the likely outcomes.
Are we facing bigger problems upon which our energies would be better spent? (i.e. alternative fuel development)
What should a tiny country like NZ be doing, if anything?
What is the opportunity cost of the symbolic “me-too” gesture?
We also suspect ulterior motives, given the anti-globalisation crowd were so quick to jump on this bandwagon….
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Duncan B: “Which makes them unreliable in your eyes?”
No absolutely not, my concern is that they are only comment pieces, not who has made them.
I maintain that there is no proper science expressing the skeptic viewpoint. No peer reviewed studies, no large reviews, no intergovernmental panels. The only medium that expresses the skeptic viewpoint are comment or editorial pieces in newspapers or magazines or blogs, or self-published pamphlets.
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PEL: too much focus on Kyoto and not enough on practical solutions.
I don’t understand what you are referring to. It’s not one of the other, it’s the same thing. In order to make Kyoto not be a cost on the nation but instead make money for the nation we have to do lots of practical things such as:
encouraging energy efficiency,
insulating houses,
introducing car emissions standards,
supporting public transport,
encouraging urban planning that supports walking and cycling,
supporting solar water heating,
introducing green minimum building standards,
no-one in the Green Party is saying “lets ratify Kyoto and not bother reducing emissions” as you seem to suggest. Rather we are saying “lets put in place all sorts of policies that will reduce emissions and this will mean that ratifying Kyoto is easy”.
And it is often not a choice between reducing emissions or adapting to climate change. I maintain that many of the practical steps that we advocate will do both – reduce emissions AND help us live with a changed climate.
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I’m all for encouraging energy efficiency, insulating houses,
introducing high powered electric cars (see Tesla) , supporting public transport where it makes sense, encouraging urban planning that supports walking and cycling where it makes sense, supporting solar water heating, and building decent buildings.
I’m not in favour of sending $750 million offshore to make some people feel better about themselves, as well as fining billions to do all the above. We’re not a wealthy country. Use the $750m to achieve the above, and if that also meets our obligations under Kyoto, then that’s a bonus.
We must ensure silly hot air taxes don’t destroy our productivity, because that will result in real misery, as opposed to the imagined kind.
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There has to be a price put on the commons
I do not care if you put it there to discourage waste of fuel or to prevent release of CO2 … I do not care WHAT excuse is politically acceptable, if there is no price put on the commons, the PLANET, then the philosophical rants of the right (including the stately language of Rand who – at the END of her blurb makes a statement which both industry and Libertarian interpreters of her statements, have apparently taken to mean that industry is cannot be CHANGED by the actions – Given the precision of her language in general that’s a hell of a mistake in interpretation)
- are simply arguments to steal from the future until there is no future left.
Now I am sorry for people whose industries are going to suffer, and I am delighted for those who will profit by involvement in the new ones that spring up, but the need to put a PRICE on the consumption and destruction of the planet does not need “scientific” proof of this danger or that. It is a logical and implacable consequence of the laws of thermodynamics and the numbers of humans on the earth. A child could see it… and I understood it when I was 8 years old.
The problem invariably arises – that the only way to put a price on it is through some action of government. Worse, the collective actions of many governments.
This raises the hackles of Libertarians and leads to instinctive but incredibly maladaptive behaviours (in terms of human survival and civilization surviving) on their part.
PEL… IPCC is a best case nearly guaranteed minimum result. All the indications of the past few years have been “it is getting worse faster” indications. You expect to ADAPT? With what? How? You will have stuff-all energy to do it with if you don’t start NOW and if you don’t start reducing now you may have to adapt to breathing hydrogen sulfide because the risk of good things happening may be limited but the downside risk goes all the way to mass extinctions of 95% or more of the species now living on the planet.
Just put a price on the commons. Put a price on the CO2. Put a price on dumping acid into the ocean and the air. Industry will change, it will adapt… and we all may get through this. Quit talking about “kneecapping industry” because it is, damnit, industries and individuals responding to economic misinformation ( these things are “FREE”) who are destroying us.
Giving them a correct signal isn’t kneecapping them… and that point of view needs to be seriously reconsidered.
respectfully
BJ
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PeterExitsLeft Says:
October 31st, 2007 at 12:10 pm
> I’m not in favour of sending $750 million offshore to make some people feel better about themselves, as well as fining billions to do all the above.
I agree. It’s absurd that we’ve got ourselves in the position where the Kyoto protocol will have the effect of forcing us to send lots of money overseas. We should have been working on improving efficiency and reducing emissions ever since we signed up to it, so that we would now be in the position where other countries would actually be sending money to us. Then we would have set a good example to embarrass other countries, made our economy more efficient, reduced the amount of money we spend on importing oil, and facilitated the development of energy-saving technologies by local companies which could then earn money exporting them to countries that hadn’t bothered to develop the technology. But instead, New Zealanders, New Zealand businesses and the Labour-led government have mostly done nothing about it, and our emissions have risen 33%, and now we have to send lots of money overseas. What an insane situation to have got ourselves into!
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hear hear kahikatea, nice one
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Today we finally got sensible insulation standards for new homes, but only in the South Island and Central North Island. The rest of the country is exempt till next year. Labour had the perfect opportunity to introduced these new standards back in 2002 when there was a power crisis to justify acting with haste, or even in 2000 if they had been serious about our Kyoto commitments back then.
Estimates of the costs of complying with environmental regulations should be treated with extreme caution. Studies of the costs of automotive environmental and safety regulations in the USA have found that over the last 40 years they have added between 20% and 40% to the cost of new cars. In that same time improvements to reliability, performance and comfort have added almost 100%. Fortunately efficiency gains have reduced manufacturing costs by almost two/thirds so the average price hasn’t increased any faster than average wages. Very simply, that means that a typical american car that costs $20,000 is actually an $8,000 1967 car with an additional $2,000 worth of emissions equipment, $2,000 worth of safety equipment, $2,000 worth of engine power and $2,000 worth of luxury equipment that would have only been fitted as standard equipment on Cadillac’s in 1967. Industry submissions had always overestimated the compliance costs, sometimes by as much as ten times.
The cost/benefit analysis that got Ford into so much trouble with the Pinto seems to have become standard practice for modern politicians. Ford calculated how much it would cost to settle out of court with victims or their families and found that this would cost less than recalling all Pintos to fix the design flaws. Turn people into numbers and the moral dimension disappears. It might be cheaper to adapt to climate change than to prevent it, but only in dollars. You might be inclined to disagree with that economic argument if you happen to be one of the unfortunate millions or billions that are being sentenced to drown or starve “because it’s cheaper that way”.
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keVYN
If they are so sensible why has the govt lied about the numbers to justify it. Cosgrove says you could save $1800 a year yet the average annual power bill is $1600 a year, and only 1/3 of that goes on heating. So he is saying you could save more than you spend. Brilliant he has invented perpetual energy…
Do the numbers yourself MED data says average use is 8000kwh/yr * 20c (average dunedin electricity price) = $1600 /3 = $533.
To save $1800 in the best possible case you would pay nothing for heating after the changes but would have a starting point of an annual power bill of $5400 or be using 24000kwh per year! Completely unrealistic and out of touch with what actually happens. So all this is is a house tax on new and renovated homes.
Cosgrorove said : “While this will add modest costs to new homes ($3,000 to $5,000 approximately), these will be recouped through lower gas and electricity bills in three to seven years. The benefits continue long after that investment has been repaid, with projected annual savings for households of between $1,800 (Dunedin) and $760 (Auckland).”
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Insider – your calculations and conclusions are bemusing. I’ve calculated a benefit cost ratio (BCR) for the additional insulation on the basis of the following assumptions:
1. Additional insulation costs $4,000
2. Lifetime of house is 50 years
3. Household electricity consumption of 8000kwh/year
4. One third of total electricity is consumed for heating
5. Additional insulation reduces electricity used for heating by half
6. Average electricity price of 20c/kwh, inflating at 3% per annum.
7. Discount rate of 10%
On the basis of these assumptions the BCR is calculated as 1. This means the project returns financial savings equivalent to its costs. The calculation is considered conservative because:
1. 10% is a relatively excessive discount rate; and
2. The average home will be lived in for more than 50 years
So society is essentially benefiting from improved health associated with warmer homes, for no expense whatsoever. Sounds like a good investment to me.
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Stu
You may be right but that is not the basis of the govt’s decision. If they had used your argument I might not disagree but they said “these [costs] will be recouped through lower gas and electricity bills in three to seven years.” So your bemusement should be directed at Cosgrove and co.
Also while the lifespan of your house may be 50 years, the insulation either may not be effective that long (plenty of people who used insulfluff or similar will know about the problems with settling) or will be replaced due to other renovations – windows are a classic for that. So your 50 years is highly optimistic. ALso your heating reduction is way over. Typically they are quoting a 30% reduction. That is questionable as people tend to not bank the savings but turn up the heat, take off their jumpers and spend/use the same (which may be a good thing overall).
ANecdotal example, I have a 50 year old house and none of the windows are original and all were replaced before I bought it more than 10 years ago – and one of those has since been replaced again.
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Insider – good points. I still support the program but agree with your critique of the arguments proposed to support it.
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Stu
It may be that Cosgrove misspoke as well. I have no great respect for his judgement or ability. Of course ANY error is labeled a lie immediately in the toxicity of our current political arrangements. (Thanks for being abrasive and aggressive insider, it will be remembered to your credit)
The insulation is, as you point out, a good thing and at a small enough price. Most people can do useful things for less than the stated prices as well. Depends on getting your hands dirty a bit. The problem?
It isn’t done in the rental house.
I won’t put in underfloor insulation, though I would like to do so. The cost is not recoverable for me. The landlord won’t, the cost is not recoverable for him. The rental bias of the current real-estate market has knock-on effects to the energy efficiency of housing in the market.
respectfully
BJ
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bj
it is not an error because it has
a) been repeated
b) uses assumptions that have no basis in reality
c) subjected to a peer review that showed it was unrealistic (as reported in NBR last week)
In the face of that I don;t think it is unreasonable to call it a lie. I was going to say they fudged the numbers but they have gone far beyond that.
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Thanks for the comment stu. Perhaps you could explain the significance of teh discount rate as I know the govt is using 5% in its climate change calculations. I’m not an accountant so please talk slowly.
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Well, that certainly depresses my already low opinion of Mr Cosgrove. His influence in immigration gives me the initial bad taste.
I was not aware of the prior art. However, quickly labeling things as lies (particularly without pointing out why they are lies rather than mistakes) ever more quickly inflames opinions on both sides of an issue… I have seen the word used FAR too often.
You can rest assured that it is one of the worst insults (to my mind) that I could ever offer anyone and I do not use the word even when I think it might be appropriate. I have to know with great certainty that it is not somehow a matter of error, misreporting or misinformation.
Better to avoid it, the need to prove the personal intent vs ignorance of the person making the statement and the emotional freight that goes with it.
Just an opinion of course, you are free to ignore.
respectfully
BJ
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bj
I share your sentiments. I didn’t do it lightly
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The benefit cost ratio (BCR) divides total benefits by total costs. If the BCR is greater than 1, the benefits are obviously greater than the costs.
Discount rates are a way of calculating the time value of money. For example, a dollar now is worth more than a dollar in one years time. This relates to the opportunity you have to invest the dollar for a year and earn a return. So a discount rate of 7% means a dollar in one years time is worth 7% less than a dollar today.
The time value of money is important when calculating the BCR associated with capital investment. Obviously it is better to recoup your capital investment in 5 years rather than 10 years, all other things being equal. It is this time value that the discount rate attempts to account for.
So – a high discount rate (such as 10%) attributes a lower value to future benefits far more than a low discount rate (such as 5%).
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BJCHIP said (with respect to underfloor insulation) “The landlord won’t, the cost is not recoverable for him.”
Actually the landlord won’t because he perceives that the cost is not recoverable for him. To encourage him to insulate, he needs to see a return.
One immediate return would be if he could charge a higher rental. This is tricky since this requires tenants to perceive a saving or other gain to them to offset the higher rental, which isn’t obvious until you have lived in a place for a while. Perhaps a rental property rating system could work – 5 stars for fully insulated with heat pump perhaps?
Another benefit to a landlord would be less tenant turnover and therefore less time that a property isn’t being rented out. Reducing the tenants’ costs can make it easier for them to pay the rent and not default, and improving their conditions reduces turnover.
It is tricky…
Of course the government could legislate (ducking for cover…)
Trevor.
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Stu, that is the clearest explanation of discount rate I have ever come across.
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More efficient light bulbs will help. LED lighting is now a serious possibility – more efficient than Compact Fluorescent bulbs and no mercury – and it is largely a case of ramping up supply. Here is an example with some useful links
http://www.ledworkplace.org/
Trevor
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