by Catherine Delahunty
The Education and Science Select Committee carries out financial reviews of Crown Research institutes which is a fascinating process, not so much the glossy balance sheets but reading between the lines. We also get to speak with the heads of these bodies and ask questions about the work. Yesterday we meet with Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS) who were very proud of their balance sheets their contracts with the Sultans of Brunei and Oman, Solid Energy and many other clients.
Their piece de resistance was the work they did to secure a vast extension to New Zealand’s oceanic economic zone which, according to them, is riddled with wonderful opportunities to make us money out of oil, gas, gold and other minerals. The good work they are doing on climate change in the Antarctic and on geothermal energy, and tidal wave power in Cook Strait was overshadowed for me at least by their passion for “carbon capture” as in storing dangerous liquid CO2 in the earth in perpetuity. They are working with the “clean coal” scientists in Australia and are utterly convinced it can work, but when Moana Mackey from Labour asked them how they would prevent leakage in earthquakes, there was no coherent answer.
Best of all was a tentative idea of boring through the Alps to bring West Coast water into the Canterbury Plans, a boys own engineering fantasy which excites GNS. When I suggested that tangata whenua might have a contrary view about treating mountains and water in this manner they reckoned they could negotiate with the “upper cadre” of Ngai Tahu, but of course wouldn’t do it if there was opposition from tangata whenua.
Their enthusiasm for seabed mining in the EEZ was untempered by any consideration for environmental effects on sea mounts and ocean biodiversity. These are minor impediments compared to the vast opportunity of making money out of dinosaur fossil fuels.
What bugged me about their approach was how unscientific it was. It was so narrowly focused on geology and seemed ignore all environments in which all this drilling and blasting was to take place.
In the Wild West the hired guns work for anybody that pays. One of their leading scientists worked for the Pentagon they told us with pride. I can see that they have skills, experience and can invent fantastic machines and ideas; I just couldn’t find any environmental ethics in their portfolio. Perhaps I need drill down deeper.
Or perhaps science having to sell itself to survive is a big part of the problem?
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Catherine Delahunty on Fri, May 1st, 2009
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I’m tangata whenua.
It’s fine with me.
>>is riddled with wonderful opportunities to make us money out of oil, gas, gold and other minerals.
Fantastic news!
>>is a big part of the problem
Opportunity, not problem.
Lighten up Greens, loathe as I am to quote Cullen….
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Scientists come up with megalomanical and not-so-megalomanical ideas and methods all the time, politicians decide whether that’s a good idea or not. Scientists are not in charge, which is probably a good thing.
Getting water from the West Coast is probably something that east coasters have fantasised about for years, would love to see something happen there.
Interesting to see what they’re up to thanks Catherine!
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Em, this was the Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS) CRI wasn’t it? not people from the Ministry of the environment posing as GNS??
These guys and girls are supposed to get their rocks off (pun intended) on geology! I’d be very upset if they spent their time investigating environmental science – that’s what we pay the other lot for!
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“What bugged me about their approach was how unscientific it was. It was so narrowly focused on geology and seemed ignore all environments in which all this drilling and blasting was to take place.”
What’s unscientific about that? Do you think Einstein was unscientific for revealing that E=MC[sqaured] because he ignored all environments in which all this nuclear power was to take released? Or Rutherford? Or Watt, Fourier, Coulomb, Stephenson, et al, with their discoveries that created King Coal? I just can’t find any environmental ethics in their portfolio. Perhaps I need drill down deeper into my own world view and see why it’s in conflict with the one shared by great scientists.
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>>When I suggested that tangata whenua might have a contrary view about treating mountains and water in this manner
Did they roll their eyes and wonder what you were doing there, not waving, but drowning?
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Science corrupted by the profit motive is not science at all.
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There seems to be a considerable difference between Catherine’s summary of what was said in response to her tangata whenua question and the response quoted in the NZPA article that appears in today’s Marlborough Express.
“One of the projects we have mooted is drilling a hole through the Southern Alps so that we can irrigate the Canterbury Plains.” GNS Science chairman Con Anastasiou, a Wellington lawyer, told parliamentarians this week.
“It’s a germ in somebody’s mind. I can’t say anything more than that at this stage.”
In response to Catherine’s question Mr Anastasiou said:
“One of the real concerns they have is in the mixing of waters, from one river to another, but there is no point in starting a dialogue until we – from a scince point of view – belive that it is feasible.
“We know we are going to be challenged, but if we conclude from the science point of view that it can be done, we will go and talk to all of the iwi.”
The final two paragraphs don’t have quotation marks so I assume this is the journalist’s summary of the remainder of Mr Anastasiou’s response:
‘It would be important for GNS Science to start its consultation at the right time, to show respect, to present the potential project in the right light, and to outline the opportunities, he said.
Mr Anastasiou agreed that one of the biggest potential beneficiaries from an extensive new water supply for Canterbury would be the Ngai Tahu iwi, a major stakeholder in the regional economy.
IMHO Ngai Tahu have a very pakeha attitude to natural resource utilisation, as witnessed by the scale of their Wigram and Prestons subdivisions and Tower Junction big box development and their current skirmish with the Crown over whether the Crown used insider knowledge to sell worthless forest estates to Ngai Tahu for 120 million.
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StephenR Says:
May 1st, 2009 at 10:02 am
> Scientists come up with megalomanical and not-so-megalomanical ideas and methods all the time, politicians decide whether that’s a good idea or not. Scientists are not in charge, which is probably a good thing.
Most of the problems with these ideas are also identified by scientists.
One Scientist (Thomas Midgley) discovered there waere benefits to engine performance from putting diethyl lead in petrol. Another scientist (Clair Patterson) discovered that this was leading to massive and dangerous lead pollution. Scientists identify ideas, other scientists identify problems with them.
The problem is that businesses or government departments with a profit motive will tend to fund the scientific research that leads to ways of making money, and give far less money to the research that might lead to the conclusion that they shouldn’t do it. So it’s not actually the scientists who are biased towards the megalomaniacal ideas.
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Someone appears to be doing a parody of Catherine on Twitter?
twitter.com/greencatherine
It is pretty accurate, though
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I read this post and thought “oh! Another ideological burp of Luddism from the Green Party, how surprising”. Lots of criticism of science, not a lot of suggested alternatives. Typical.
Whether the Greens like it or not we live in an age where technology is ascendant. We are where we are due to technology, and now we have got the tiger by the tail we can’t let go. Cheap energy is the cornerstone of our seven billion plus planet and since technology got us this far, technology is our only way of getting our of the bit of a corner we’ve painted ourselves into. Don’t kid yourselves. Humans are not capable of voluntary mass behavioural changes of the sort required to deal with global warming, especially in democracies. We only have two options in relation to global warming. One is seeking technological solutions – fusion, solar, wind, clean coal, carbon sequestration, algae fuel, mining of near earth objects like asteroids – the other is a Malthusian catastrophe caused by climate change and resource exhaustion. Since the kneejerk Luddism of the Greens clearly rejects technology, and they offer no other solution, one is forced yet again to conclude the Green movement is a sort of middle class environmental Fascism, where the world’s poor will be left to die to sustain the “Green” future.
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Another fly in the AGW ointment:
tinyurl.com/cz6bau
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BP just read it
can you point out the bit
thats ” Another fly in the AGW ointment”
because I looked and looked but couldn’t see it
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Tom The unspeakable thing that no one is addressing is population growth, like bacteria on a pietrie dish eh ?
When we can have an intelligent and rational debate about this then we would have some sort of chance
But we won’t, science won’t save us in the short to medium term
What do we do as much as we can to live as small a footprint as we can I guess
It won’t help when my yet to be conceived grandchild son says “Grandpops what did you do to help save us from this mess”
I left it to science boy now paddle the damn boat boy
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Weka,
Prehaps we could destroy all tamiflu and hope for the best in Egypt?
What was that NZ TV show with the virus that wiped out all adults? The Tribe?
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Whether the Scientists like it or not we live in an age where witchcraft is ascendant. We are where we are due to witchcraft, and now we have got the tiger by the tail we can’t let go. Authoritarianism is the cornerstone of all the tribes on this planet and since witchcraft got us this far, witchcraft is our only way of getting our of the bit of a corner we’ve painted ourselves into. Don’t kid yourselves. Humans are not capable of voluntary mass behavioural changes of the sort required to deal with the plague, especially in tribes. We only have two options in relation to the plague. One is seeking authoritarian solutions (from the ‘wise witchdoctors’) – chants, human sacrifices, blood letting, praying – the other is a health catastrophe caused by the plague and poor sanitation . Since the knee jerk Luddism of the Scientists clearly rejects witchcraft, and they offer no other solution, one is forced yet again to conclude the Scientific movement is a sort of middle class medical Fascism, where the world’s poor will be left to die to sustain the “Scientific” future.
With apologies to Tom Semmens. But really, it is riddled with platitudes.
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>>no one is addressing is population growth
Report to Carousel, Weka 5.
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BP – I can’t see any fly in the ointment either. The differences between northern and southern hemispheres and various regions has been well documented, and I suspect is the straw man in the usual Herald fashion. This is just more good data to make the climate models we do have more robust.
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Science is the way to go, but that’s not the same as saying that high-technology is always the way to go. Science can point the way to new technology, science can identify reasons why certain technological solutions may be dangerous or counterproductive, and sometimes science will lead to solutions that look deceptively low-tech.
We have to draw a distinction between scientific inquiry and the sort of ‘scientific megalomania’ that Catherine refers to.
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BluePeter Says:
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
> Another fly in the AGW ointment:
I can see the variation they describe being a fly in the ointment for people who claim that the whole world was hotter during the ‘mediaeval warm period’ just because parts of Europe were, but apart from that it’s just a slight improvement in data for climate models.
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Tom Semmens said “Humans are not capable of voluntary mass behavioural changes of the sort required to deal with global warming, especially in democracies.”
Especially in democracies and free markets.
Therefore we can’t rely on technological solutions because the mass behavioural changes needed to implement those technologies isn’t going to happen. Governments are going to have to force people, and especially people who own mass carbon emitting businesses, to change their behaviours.
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Kevyn,
Off course they would first have to be elected on that platform. And then stay elected.
Could be interesting for a democratic process, unless you’re talking about dictatorship?
Are you advocating dictatorships? No democracy?
Any ideas on how they may force these businesses?
Taxation is the simple answer but those costs are passed onto the consumer.
Mind you with a new “best friend” in Gareth Morgan, the Greens may now be able to nut out an egological PLUS ecomomic answer.
Though I doubt the Greens will like Gareth Morgans economic remedies.
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