Bob Clarkson 2
Is it unfair to keep picking on him? Maybe he is shy. Maybe he’s a man of actions rather than words. According to the TheyWorkForYou website here are Bob Clarkson’s verbal contributions to Parliament in all the furore before the house rose for the year.
- (12 Dec 2007) Interjection: “You’d better hurry; this is under urgency.”
- (6 Dec 2007) Interjection: “Pay it back.”
- (5 Dec 2007) Interjection: “Whoo-hoo!”
- (21 Nov 2007) Interjection: “Corner dairy?”
- (21 Nov 2007) Interjection: “What about employers?”
No Right Turn calculated from my last report that Clarkson had an average of less than 1 word per sitting day. He’s showing definite signs of improvement, as he is now getting close to 2 words per day.
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December 24th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Off-topic for this thread, but interested to hear reactions to this:
“The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 and every year since 2001…The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly….The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped.”
tinyurl.com/3xx7pa
December 24th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I agree with “We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do”.
I remember getting in a lather about burning fossil fuels back in 1975. Predictions from then, assuming much lower emissions than reality, would have seen us boiled alive by now.
I think only two things are clear.
1. Something weird and a little scary is happening to the global climate.
2. Nobody has any idea, what it is, where it is going, what is causing it or how to stop it (or if stopping it is even necessary).
Some say they know what is going on but their predictions don’t happen, if you look at what they were saying 1-2-5-10 yrs ago.
One of the best (or the best) predictors is Ken Ring. Where does that leave us!
December 24th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
You can see the problems with the article in some of the comments. For example:
It seems odd Mr Whitehouse doesn’t provide any data to support his idea. Is it because they don’t?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
If David Whitehouse has evidence that climate change has stopped he can submit it to a refereed journal, but he’s probably just trotting out a variation of Bob Carter’s canard.
I’d much rather get my science news from New Scientist than New Statesman….
December 24th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
What on Earth does it mean to say that global temperature in one year is statistically the same as another year? Methinks the author is perhaps willfully misinterpreting the sciences of both climatology and statistics.
December 25th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Look i am tired of hearing this bs from you BluePeter there is enough information out about climate change that everyone has made there mind up either way. If you wish to try to convince people that the world doesn’t need help and we need to change our views on pollution I suggest you blog it on another site and stop wasting space here.
Btw do you think christens as a group are promoting climate change because it sounds so much like the apocalypse and can say “told you so” bush and most of America support the notion.
As for Bob Clarkson, hes less annoying than Winston peters tho what with all his complaining and points of order.
Merry Christmas and a very happy new year!
I want a electric car for xmas.
December 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
>>stop wasting space here
I pay my taxes. I follow the rules. I am entitled to my opinion.
>>do you think christens as a group
I have no idea. I’m an atheist.
AGW does have religious undertones. Supporters will believe in it, and rubbish anyone who keeps asking questions about it.
I remain skeptical.
December 25th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Jeez fellas, where’s your spirit of peace and goodwill? Chill out for a day.
http://walking.about.com/od/cardsandclipart/ig/Free-Email-Christmas-Ca rds/Card-Santa-Fishing.htm
December 26th, 2007 at 12:07 am
BP
Why would we rubbish anyone who keeps asking the SAME questions that we answered over, and over, and over and over again? The same “talking points” from the same tired scientific fallacies, repeated endlessly ad-infinitum, as though they actually formed a basis for actual skepticism.
We might as well be arguing about the theory of evolution. There ARE those who are skeptical still, about that bit of scientific consensus. Why? Because there is a religious implication. They lean on creation myths to support their concept of what a deity must be. A poor excuse, but it is the one they use.
There is however no particular downside for the rest of us, in their enforcing their own ignorance.
In Global Warming we see a similar result, but the view that is threatened is a form of libertarian ideology which denies that there may be a purpose to having a government and which must at ALL costs deny that there is any excuse for governments to act together, or form larger organizations or governments.
The problem however, is that this particular error has the potential of killing off human civilization and at least will unnecessarily kill many of the poorest humans on the planet.
So yes… if you come here without evidence, protesting your supposed “skepticism” loudly and providing no arguments but those whose falsehood was shown already, not once but dozens of times. Yeah… I reckon I am going to be pretty blunt about my opinion. The problem is that you aren’t being equally skeptical about the stuff you read on the right-wing blogs.
If there’s a new argument I’m happy to try to understand it.
So far the theory of AGW is looking less and less assailable, even as the “skeptics” delay action to the point now where the response must be heavy controls of sorts that even I find onerous. Things that were comparatively easy in the 90’s have become stunningly more difficult now, and will be, if the skeptical ideologues have their way, impossible before any action is taken at all.
The problem is that my children deserve better than to have their lives rubbished by someone who can’t think critically about something this important because the ideological blinders are on full flap.
respectfully
BJ
December 26th, 2007 at 8:32 am
My source wasn’t a “right-wing blog” (is all information wrong because it appears on a right wing blog?). My source was David Whitehouse, who is qualified to talk on this subject. BBC Science Correspondent 1988–1998, Science Editor BBC News Online 1998–2006 and the 2004 European Internet Journalist of the Year. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and is the author of The Sun: A Biography (John Wiley, 2005).]
He does need to come up with some data to support his theory. There is some data from other sources linked to in the comments which appear to support Whitehouses assertion that the temperature increase doesn’t fit with the amount of C02 produced. “The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.”
I don’t have ideological blinkers. The same accusation could be made of environmentalists who jumped onto the global cooling theory in the 70s, and who jumped on the warming theory prior to the weight of evidence presented in recent years.
I do not buy the Pascal Wager argument. If there is nothing we can do to control climate change, then our money would be better spend mitigating the consequences.
AGW or not, we still have a responsibility to look after the environment.
December 26th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
It seems the BBC Whitehouse for his support of exxon payin g funding climate change skeptics. Geeze i wonder who pays his wage now, one guess and its in the previous sentence. Seems the tabacco industry stopped.
As for you paying tax and should be able to blog on this site, ANYONE can blog here if they pay NZ tax or not, I’m simple saying that your blogs are a waste of space.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
bjchip
Maybe people are so sceptical of the global warming phenomon is that the world’s citizens have become justifiably suspicious of the agenda of those that hold the reins of power in their countries so any government body that seeks to convince them of something as serious as climate change/global warming is inherently suspect and because its chief proponent (Al Gore) has felt the need to resort to shrill, hysterical and alarmist claims that are not supported even by the reports of that said government body (IPCC).
“In Global Warming we see a similar result, but the view that is threatened is a form of libertarian ideology which denies that there may be a purpose to having a government and which must at ALL costs deny that there is any excuse for governments to act together, or form larger organizations or governments.”
I guess you’re referring to the ideology espoused by the vulgar libertarians who are only too happy to take advantage of Big Government’s powers when it suits them, but denounce its use when its intended to help others or inconveniences themselves? A particularly glaring example can be found here.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/007577.asp
They aren’t really hostile to governments at all, because the existence of their enterprises are dependant on government intervention on their behalf. In fact they’re hostile to democratic participation in government by the people on whose behalf the government is supposed to act as a paper by the Trilateral Commission proves.
“Crisis of democracy”
http://www.trilateral.org/projwork/tfrsums/tfr08.htm
and even more frighteningly here
http://www.newswithviews.com/socialism/socialism1.htm
“The obvious danger in such a regime resides in its potential instability. Some limited loosening is by no means unequivocally undesirable. It can be seen as a rational response to the earlier tendency, which was most manifest in the 1960s, for economic integration to run far ahead of both actual and desired political integration, thereby forcing countries into suboptimal policy choices. A degree of controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate objective for the 1980s and may be the most realistic one for a moderate international economic order. A central normative problem for the international economic order in the years ahead is how to ensure that the dis-integration indeed occurs in a controlled way and does not rather spiral into damaging restrictionism.”
Alternative to Monetary Disorder (Fred Hirsch and Michael Doyle, CFR)
As you know I am probably one of the most radical Greens around here, but I personally believe that Global Warming is a needless distraction from far more pressing issues such as global poverty, fighting AIDS, food insecurity, Third World exploitation and I for one do not believe its particularly accidental. Back in the 1970s there was Malthusian hysteria about World “Overpopulation” and a fear that hordes of starving Third Worlders would invade the First World for sactuary. So governments all over the Third World rather than questioning why there are so many poor in the world or addressing the underlying causes merely tried to eradicate the poor by engaging in a phlethora of programmes designed to control population inspired by people like Paul Erlich and following the dictums set down by Henry Kissinger et el in their report National Security Study Memorandum 200 http://www.population-security.org/28-APP2.html.
It would be a very grave mistake to put your faith in the very people who are responsible for the problem IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I wouldn’t worry about your child, because any harm will easily be mitigated in the wealthy West and if your concerned about the hapless inhabitants of the Third World, do you think that they’re concerned whether they’ll be killed by floods or hurricanes, rather than the traditional preventable diseases, lack of clean drinking water, hunger etc?
Don’t you realise that the first casuality of the costs mandated by the Kyoto protocol will be the pitifal aid that the benelevent nations of the West provide to Third World as happened in the US to curtail its welfare programmes after it had to bail out the Mexican government due to Peso Crisis in 1982 and the financial sector after the Savings and Loans Crisis?
December 27th, 2007 at 12:54 am
You’re right - Not a right wing blog, just a publication trying to keep the “controversy” alive and the readership up. Whitehouse should know better than this. .. and the question has to be where he got HIS information from at this point.
“Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase.”
That’s not true. If the greenhouse is working as we think the CO2 driven component of the temperature will rise. No temperature correlation is that simple AND NONE OF US THINK IT IS. So what IS he on about.
He gives no source for his assertion, and as noted by XYY the data available to us do not support his assertion. Note that the NASA datasets include the Arctic and Antarctic insofar as possible, while the CDIAC dataset out of East Anglia has not always done so. Recent versions do. Which version was used?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2005/climate_2005.pd f
Apparently not the same one.
So the New Statesman has proven themselves itself to be a reliable source of distracting nonsense and Whitehouse, despite his credentials, has apparently written something for mass consumption based on inadequate personal research and attention.
I hope he was paid well. His credibility is CTD.
I fail to see a reason to accept this sort of unreviewed and apparently unsupportable assertion as evidence of anything but a periodical’s desire to keep the appearance of debate alive and its readership exercised.
Since the temperature excursions exist, claims based on their absence meet with immediate difficulty. I am tempted to ask the author whether the Arctic Ice cap needs a special notification that it doesn’t have to melt.
I am not patient any more. Patience is over. This argument has had ideological roots from the beginning. Libertarians fear the power that the government might gain, ignoring that the government already has all the power it could possibly need. They argue even bad science to avert the great evil, that human civilization might survive but be governed poorly.
Oh wait… we are already governed poorly.
Global cooling? What environmentalists were those? An article in Newsweek? That’s another publication of entertaining distractions, not science.
Let me point out that it isn’t environmentalists who are scared out of their skins at NASA. A lot of actual scientists work there, but not a lot of “environmentalists”.
Every ton of CO2 we emit makes things that much worse for our kids. Yes we have to work on mitigating consequences, but we also have to work on preventing even more consequences. You think maybe the process is automatically going to stop at the end of the century? I have no knowledge of any reason to believe that. We can do the hard stuff now or make it harder for every living thing on the planet later. If the temp goes up 6 degrees we risk a mass extinction event. This business of trying to NOT admit we have to do something now by any means available has reached the point where it is quite likely killing children of our children.
Consequences are just be for anonymous future generations. We don’t have to put ourselves out at ALL to keep them from becoming worse.
Except that those are MY kids and I have to say that I am developing a real mean streak about the way some people treat their future.
respectfully
BJ
December 27th, 2007 at 8:18 am
>>I’m simple saying that your blogs are a waste of space.
Yet you answer them.
BTW: SleepyTreeHugger has a good handle on the situation.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:11 am
BluePeter
I’m not denying that Global Warming is happening, but what I AM saying is that we need to drastically reexamine core assumptions about our society and economy in order to deal with the underlying causes of the world’s ills rather than engaging in a government sponsored programme that will further impoverish the already disadvantaged and further enrich the already wealthy who are the cause of the problem IN THE FIRST PLACE.
For one thing we need to bury the myth of the “Protestant work ethic” that is the cause of the West’s prosperity. The true inspiration for that “ethic” were the exhortations of the elite, wealthy, priviledged class (European aristocrats) for others to work industriously, because work is a virtue in its self.
This attitude can be best expressed in the debate between the British Slave Emancipators represented by the likes of William Wilburforce of Amazing Grace fame and the economist John Stuart Mill and on the other side Francis Galton the father of eugenics, John Ruskin who taught that upper class values should be extended to the “lower orders”, and Thomas Carlyle who inspired the Leninists view that work could become the new Opiate of the Masses.
http://www.unibuc.ro/eBooks/lls/IoanaZirra-VictorianAge/6.htm
Thomas Carlyles attitude can best be expressed in this quote
“If Quashee will not honestly aid in bringing out those sugars, cinnamons, and nobler products of the West Indian Islands, for the benefit of all mankind, then I say neither will the Powers permit Quashee to continue growing pumpkins there for his own lazy benefit;”
John Stuart Mill replied with this statement, which I find particularly appropriate.
“Work, I imagine, is not a good in itself. There is nothing laudable in work for work’s sake. To work voluntarily for a worthy object is laudable; but what constitutes a worthy object?”
“In the present case, it seems, a noble object means “spices.” “The gods wish, besides pumpkins, that spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies”—the “noble elements of cinnamon, sugar, coffee, pepper black and grey,” “things far nobler than pumpkins.” Why so? Is what supports life, inferior in dignity to what merely gratifies the sense of taste? Is it the verdict of the “immortal gods” that pepper is noble, freedom (even freedom from the lash) contemptible? (28)”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/LevyPeartdismal2.html
I highly recommend that you read an article by the mutualist Kevin Carson that is in my opinion the most reasoned and balanced critique of the capitalist economic system that I have ever read.
http://www.mutualist.org/id4.html
December 27th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Sorry Sleepy… I am still absorbing the concept that there is someone out there who regards this as a conspiracy of the sort you describe. I have to admit that I have not heard anyone with that particular take on the issue until you turned up.
However, I have to differ with you with respect to it being a distraction.
“far more pressing issues such as global poverty, fighting AIDS, food insecurity, Third World exploitation” do not get the attention of science this same way. None of them bid to end human civilization… though they remind us that human civilization would be a really good idea if we could ever get it to happen.
Nor were the scary seventies backed by scientific data of the sort we are looking at now. At that point we STILL had the cold war and even now the threat of nuclear annihilation while discounted greatly, is still real.
It is far from a mere distraction. If it distracts us from the plight of the poor of the planet, it is not due to some controlling conspiracy. It is because “the prospect of being hanged wonderfully concentrates the mind”
“I wouldn’t worry about your child, because any harm will easily be mitigated in the wealthy West”
I have no doubt you believe that…. but science and logic both tell me that the likelihood that it is true is not better than 50-50 here in NZ and becomes vanishingly small in my former hometown of Los Angeles…. and at plus 6 there is a distinct possibility of killing 95% of all LIFE on the planet.
The human species as a whole is being exceedingly stupid. Nature punishes stupid humans without remorse. Nature punishes species that overstep their bounds without remorse.
If we survive the next century (and we may not even get that far) the economic landscape will be greatly altered. The greed of any conspiracy you postulate cannot alter the laws of Thermodynamics.
respectfully
BJ
December 27th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
bjchip
I am not denying the existance of global warming nor am I asserting that it is some Establishment conspiracy, BUT what I am saying is the elites are using it as excuse to consolidate their hold on the world’s wealth and the reins of power globallly. Global Warming hysteria is a convenient device for them to convince people that such consolidation of power is a good thing.
The subversion and cooption social movements and crises by elites for their own ends is not a unique phenomon. Global warming is just the latest in a very long list. The English Civil War, the American War for Independance, the French Revolution, the financial crises in Europe and the United States, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights movement, 9/11 and so on.
If global warming is so serious why do the panel of the IPCC conclude.
“The report actually suggests that sea level will rise over the next century by 18-59 centimetres. Meanwhile, the report says: ‘Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and gain mass due to increased snowfall.’
“The human species as a whole is being exceedingly stupid.”
Most of the world’s population have absolutely NOTHING to do with GHG emmissions despite the greatest proportion of it it residing in countries that have low emissions. The issue is NOT the stupidity of mankind but rather the arrogance of the elites and the ignorance of those of us in the West that is responsible for “Global Warming”.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
There is a difference between the global climate change,if or not its real and the way that governments, business and people are using it.
We think we are all so strong because of the few major catastrophes which have recently been dealt to us. But the simple fact is there has never been so many people on planet earth so things happen quicker, water runs out quicker, fertile land runs out quicker, fish stocks deplete.
If the Evil Elites are using global warming why is USA government always downplaying it in UN reports and such, what with all the scary things they have done in the past.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
ekstatek,
Humans have also become much more adaptable and resilient. The climate has been changing….well since there WAS a climate. Its not a static system.
The US government has been downplaying Global Warming, because they don’t want to hand their national soverignty over to the UN when it theres no profit in it AND they realise that their economy is on the brink of the abyss already and having to pay penalties for emitting more GHGs than their limit could well push the it over the edge.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Can you please upload my post please frog?
January 1st, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Its been stuck in moderation for about a week now.