by frog
Everything you need to know can be found here:
Making your voice heard on New Zealand’s emissions reduction target
(This brief post will remain sticky at the top for a while)
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Sun, July 5th, 2009
Tags: climate change, emissions target
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
aiming all emissions at target Frog; – stand by for results.
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I vote for full accounting; not of increases in a certain period but of all carbon production
Pity that there are no meetings anywhere near me
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Sapient you need a multi-faceted world meter, not a meeting – unless of course, it’s a barn dance.
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The fact we’re shaded green makes us part of the under-devloped countries.
Like them, we should take no part in this scam. We’re not the cause of the problem, if indeed there is one.
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Sorry BP , our per-capita emissions are strong..
(3 really AWFUL jokes omitted here)
BJ
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Sorry BP, the facts say otherwise. We are part of the problem. We are part of the solution. When did you become such a bludger?
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Mitigating the need to act with the need to adapt. I am not going to come to the party with a request for 40% or more. I have three reasons.
The first is that we do not count our pastureland the same way everyone else does. It is correct to count the enteric methane increase, it is wrong to omit the pasture as a sink.
The second is that there is a wager involved here. It is not one I like, but it is definitely present. The wager is that this process will succeed sufficiently to prevent warming from exceeding 3 degrees. I look at the parties involved and the needs of the planet’s population and our historic inability to do anything like curbing our appetites for food and procreation and the political reality that Goldman runs the USA… and I do not feel particularly optimistic. Some of the powder has to be kept dry. Some of the resources of NZ must be devoted to moving infrastructure out of the new tidal zones and reinforcing it to withstand the changes in rainfall and wind and sun that are possible.
Third is that there is a balance to be struck between fairness and reality. The “fair” distribution of change would see us required to drop our CO2 emissions to about a third of what they are now. The reality is that much of the third world is not viable for rapid industrialization or development of the sort present in the developed world and the need is IMMEDIATE. We can not bring them up to their FAIR consumption of CO2 in the time available, so our reduction targets can be diminished by their lack of development for a time. Equitable development of global society requires first that we survive to find ways to create that development.
respectfully
BJ
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>>e are part of the problem. We are part of the solution. When did you become such a bludger?
Look forward to you applying that same statement to welfare.
We’re not part of the problem. We could cut our emissions by 100%, and world temperature would not move. That’s what the science says. Therefore, our only value in this tax scam is symbolic.
Our efforts should be symbolic. The science doesn’t support your position, Greens. Taxing New Zealand citizens more will not solve the problem, and will create worse problems.
Cap and trade is a scam.
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Peter says: Our efforts should be symbolic.
I’m listening! Can you describe ‘our efforts’?
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The downside I see for non participation is convenient trade embargoes, from the likes of the ultra-protectionist EU.
Therefore, we need a smoke and mirrors approach to look like we’re on-board. Should be a piece of cake, given the whole cap-n-trade-n-Gore scam consists entirely of smoke and mirrors.
Tax the weather. Whatever will they think of next?
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We’re not part of the problem. We could cut our emissions by 100%, and world temperature would not move.
Wrong, in several ways. If we cut our emissions by 100% there would be a small (really very small) but real change in global emissions, but that is not what is being proposed here.
Our emissions are higher per capita than the equilibrium output for less than 2 degrees warming per capita for the planet. That makes us part of the problem.
respectfully
BJ
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BP said:
“The fact we’re shaded green makes us part of the under-devloped countries.”
Now this should be of real concern to the Green party (it is to me).
It is entirely possible that a world carbon trading scheme will result in a net degrading of our environment.
This could be an absolute disaster.
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>>small (really very small
No need to be a pedant. It’s like putting your foot in the ocean makes a slight difference to the ocean. So what?
There are much better things we could do with the money than reducing our tiny c02 output by a tiny amount. THAT is the point.
I suspect this is why few people take the Greens seriously. If something has got the word “environment” written on the box, you seem to lose all sense of perspective and will push any mad, flawed scheme to the hilt.
That’s (blind) ideology, eh. The equivalent would be National pushing every aspect of free market capitalism to the hilt, lest they get seen as not quite committed enough.
You haven’t shown how taxing New Zealander’s more benefits us. Until you do, then New Zealanders are right not to listen.
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we need a smoke and mirrors approach to look like we’re on-board.
Ah! The old ’snake-oil’ ploy! That’ll put us in good stead with the international community and build tremendous national pride.
“God of Nations, we’ve clay feet…”
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No, its “the land of the wrong white crowd”
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I thought you believed in individual responsibility BP. Guess I was wrong. You’re a bludger at heart. Still paying your taxes, BP?
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Why should our taxes go off shore to some UN development agency?
Why not at least spend our money on our country?
So obviously frog you have no problem in others bludging off us.
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Some people want climate action and are anti emissions trading and pollution markets
See http://www.carbontradewatch.org
http://www.climatecamp.org.nz
withoutyourwalls.wordpress.com
and http://www.sinkswatch.org/ – An initiative to track and scrutinize carbon sink projects
Kiwi blog Socialist Aotearoa puts it this way:
‘The UN climate talks will not solve the climate crisis. We are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than we were when international negotiations began fifteen years ago: emissions are rising faster than ever, while carbon trading allows climate criminals to pollute and profit. At present, the talks are essentially legitimising a new colonialism that carves up of the world’s remaining resources.’
http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/2009/07/climate-action-tues-7th- july-730-pm.html
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http://www.carbontradewatch.org
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Solid Energy, Fonterra and Rio Tinto et all can pay their own way – the nz public should not pay for their pollution and refusal to act
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I might have said this before, but BP’s arguments are the same I use for justifying robbing banks.
If I rob a branch of a big international bank (just one – I’m not greedy) it won’t make any noticeable difference to the bank’s profits or the costs of their services. I can put the money to much better use than the bank paying for some junket, another TV ad or nice shiny letterhead.
Therefore, the only value of me not robbing a bank is symbolic.
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call for action from the Socialist Aotearoa blog
The UN climate talks will not solve the climate crisis. We are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than we were when international negotiations began fifteen years ago: emissions are rising faster than ever, while carbon trading allows climate criminals to pollute and profit. At present, the talks are essentially legitimising a new colonialism that carves up of the world’s remaining resources.
http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/2009/07/climate-action-tues-7th- july-730-pm.html
and climate camp debate
Battle Plan for a Global Day of Action on Climate Change.
a response to Chris Trotter’s critique of the Climate Camp gathering in Parihaka.
Joe Carolan http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/2009/05/battle-plan-for-global-d ay-of-action-on.html
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why emissions trading will never work…
“Think of the climate as a small boat on a rather choppy ocean. Under normal circumstances the boat will rock to and fro, and there is a finite risk that the boat could be overturned by a rogue wave. But now one of the passengers has decided to stand up and is deliberately rocking the boat ever more violently. Someone suggests that this is likely to increase the chances of the boat capsizing. Another passenger then proposes that with his knowledge of chaotic dynamics he can counterbalance the first passenger and, indeed, counter the natural rocking caused by the waves. But to do so he needs a huge array of sensors and enormous computational resources to be ready to react efficiently but still wouldn’t be able to guarantee absolute stability, and indeed, since the system is untested, it might make things worse. Is the answer to a known and increasing human influence on climate an ever more elaborate system to control the climate? Or should the person rocking the boat just sit down?”
- Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
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The 5 Stages of Climate Change.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
The Green party of New Zealand is stuck at the bargaining stage, hence why they are trying to push Cap and Trade.
Some people like myself and BJ are at the Acceptance stage much further along than people like Frog.
I can’t understand why the Greens are getting into bed with the devil (Goldman Sachs). Cap and Trade is just a way for wall street to make a lot of money via another market mechanism which they can profit from.
The US congress just passed Cap and Trade over 1000 pages, not a single member of congress read the document. It is being reported that the bill includes tariffs on any country that doesn’t have a Cap and Trade bill. So if NZ wants to continue trading with the US then I guess we will need a Cap and Trade bill and guess who is going to make lots of money from all these cap and trade bills, well goldman sachs (The Bank) is going to profit of course. I think the global green movement needs to be careful about who its getting into bed with. Goldman sachs is not and never will be our friend.
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Turnip – won’t be long til we’re in the ‘depression’ phase then. Better party while we can! (What was it like in there?) Now that you’ve accepted, what do you advise? (Keep it light – we’re heading for ‘depression’ remember).
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Change the system, not the climate!
Climate justice movement to converge on UN climate talks
The UN climate talks will not solve the climate crisis. We are no closer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than we were when international negotiations began fifteen years ago: emissions are rising faster than ever, while carbon trading allows climate criminals to pollute and profit. At present, the talks are essentially legitimising a new colonialism that carves up of the world’s remaining resources.
Faced with the profound crisis of our civilisation, and the destructive impacts of the climate crisis on already marginalised communities, all we get is a political circus playing to the interests of corporations. In response to this madness, a global movement for climate justice has emerged to reclaim power over our future. As part of this, the international network Climate Justice Action is mobilising for mass actions across the world during the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009.
No more false solutions
We cannot trust the market with our future, nor put our faith in unsafe, unproven and unsustainable technologies. Contrary to those who put their faith in “green capitalism”, we know that it is impossible to have infinite growth on a finite planet. Instead of trying to fix a destructive system, we should be:
· leaving fossil fuels in the ground
· reasserting peoples’ and community control over resources and production
· relocalising food production
· massively reducing overconsumption, particularly in the North
· recognising the ecological and climate debt owed to the peoples of the South and making reparations
· respecting indigenous and forest peoples’ rights
Real solutions to the climate crisis are being built by women and men, in both the South and the North, who fight every day to defend their environment and living conditions.
We need to globalise these solutions and work for a just transition towards a zero-carbon future.
[Agreed at the Climate Justice Action meeting Copenhagen, 21 June 2009]
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heretic said: we should be: reasserting peoples’ and community control over resources and production
Expanding on that idea heretic, you suggest we ..?
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Again, heretic, we’re not likely to be able to change the system in time.
All the things you keep mentioning are great, but the Goldman Sachs of this world carry too much sway. Yours is no entry point for dialogue with them.
1st comes a binding target (or ‘play the game’ if you like), with that comes incentive. Suggestions you propose offer no incentive for those who hold power.
Turnip, your 5 stages aren’t much help. Is it a sceptics path? But I do agree that acceptance should be a proxy for a hell of a lot more focus on adaptation.
In my view, setting and working towards a well founded target is a good means of reducing uncertainty around requirement for adaptation.
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- Manapauri
- Oataraua [recent iwi occupation]
- Bastion Point
- Save Happy Valley
- Transition Towns
- Marsden B
etc
“Networks protecting community forests, other local commons and
low-input swidden or integrated farming systems are a powerful force
against climatically destabilising land clearance, commercial logging,
high-input intensive agriculture and long-distance food transport.
• Movements against trade liberalisation, privatisation and commodifi
cation worldwide help to slow growth in unnecessary transport
and protect local subsistence regimes against threats from fossil
fuel-intensive sectors.17
• Popular movements against oil wars, gas and oil pipelines, fossil
fuel extraction, power plant pollution and airport and highway
expansion also help curb extraction of fossil fuels.
• It is increasingly clear that small renewable energy sources over
which local communities have power, whether off -grid or ongrid,
are becoming a cheap alternative to fossil fuel-oriented centralised
generating systems in many areas of the South.
Insofar as they defend local resilience and promote community solidarity
and organisation, such strategies are crucial not only in slowing climate
change but also in adapting to it.”
Full Chapter here…
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=544238
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Turnip
Frog may know more than is being revealed by what is published here. The not-quite-official stance of the party is that climaticide isn’t inevitable. The folks who study the science are more accepting but…
and it is a BIG BUT… ( gawd.. the images
)
… but the more we do to help matters now, the less trouble we have to accept later. So we are willing to do deals, even to the point of making Goldman-Sacks-The-Planet richer, if the result is better than doing nothing.
I have to get ready to go to Wellington now.
Heretic… to do what needs doing we’d need to cause a total revolution in the financial world, seizing power in a paradigm shift unprecedented in human history. I suggest here that we MIGHT do it, by the simple expedient of changing OUR currency and setting an example that the rest of the world could easily see. Whether that would succeed is impossible to know.. but the system we use is very broken. It should collapse anyway, and would except for its control over governments.
Barring that there is no chance to change the world so fast. Consider the chances of making the change I just outlined.
respectfully
BJ
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heretic – pardon my slow up-take, but could you spell it out for me? You are suggesting that we do what? Abandon hope that our politicians will deliver a solution and begin ‘popular movements against…’
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Sam Buchanan,
How curious you use a banking analogy – because that’s exactly where your cap-n-trade taxes will be going.
Won’t change the global temperature much, but the board of directors of Bank of America, Wells Fargo and CitiBank send their sincere thanks.
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>>I thought you believed in individual responsibility BP. Guess I was wrong. You’re a bludger at heart. Still paying your taxes, BP?
I pay my taxes and I get SFA back, because I’m white, successful, male and wealthy. I certainly object to paying taxes to Al Gore as well!
Ironic some government staffer calling me a bludger…..
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“Heretic… to do what needs doing we’d need to cause a total revolution in the financial world, seizing power in a paradigm shift unprecedented in human history.”
I knew it!!!!
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“Ironic some government staffer calling me a bludger…..”
I told you BP, you are part of ” the wrong white croud”
If you were poor, addicted to Pee, and beating your kids you might be listened to.
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Indeed Shunda.
Well, if the “wrong white crowd” left the land of the long white cloud, I guess those left behind could happily model their state on Zimbabwe.
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greenfly
rewind<<<<<
Full Chapter here…
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=544238
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heretic >>>>>
yeeees, more of what we are doing now you mean, powering down, farmers markets, supporting local food growers, critical massing, community building and so on, is that what you are promoting here? Is this revolutionary? How do you propose to get your message out, aside from this narrow portal?
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what we’re doing now [in NZ] is cotinuing to pin all our hopes on tim grosser and his delegation of polluters to sort it out rather than nurturing a diverse political movement to oppose this madness.
How do I propose to get your message out?
By doing just that…
http://www.climatecamp.org.nz
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nurturing a diverse political movement..
Well< I did ask.
Beginning to get a feel for your name…
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check it out greenfly, its going OFF!
there are poeple in other parts of the world organising themselves like CRAZY!
This year there will be 15 climate camps all over the world from Ireland to India. People taking direct action against the root causes of climate change, re-learning and practicing direct democracy and movement building, suistainable living, skillsharing and heaps more.
there are alternatives beyond the state policy paradigm,
thank goodness
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heretic
I did check it out and ended up on a beach with others like me…
There certainly are ‘alternatives beyond the state policy paradigm’ and there are people all over who are fully engaged in developing those. Enablers and connectors are what are needed, in my view, to create a composite that is strong enough to withstand the pressures to come. Rhino horn has been discussed here lately, but spider web might be a better example. That’s some thread.
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Transition Towns, permiculture, and campaigns like the Save Happy Valley anti coal mine campaign are good and practical alternatives to a faulty emissions trading scheme.
Nats and Act dont want to act on climate change – the greens should turn their back on such cheap ass politicos who want to privatise auckland and sell our environment and future short.
Im not prepared to let Gerry Brownlee gamble with our future, and have no time for Roger Douglas and Rodney Hide and their hidden aggendas and lack of environmental and social cred.
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Tim Groser is lame too
————-
what we’re doing now [in NZ] is cotinuing to pin all our hopes on tim grosser and his delegation of polluters to sort it out rather than nurturing a diverse political movement to oppose this madness.
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Heretic, we need both. Grassroots action and mainstream political action. anything less will fail.
As for BP and his claim that he gets SFA for his taxes, I can only say what a sheltered, ignorant life you must lead, BP. The old FD tune “you don’t know how lucky you are” springs to mind. Open your eyes, man. NZ is paradise compared to almost everywhere. If you don’t like it because you happen to have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth, please, take some time living overseas, in the ‘real’ world. You might get a glimmer of appreciation for the sweet FA that you get from your modest taxes here.
Ungrateful adult/child refuses to take responsibility for own dirty nappy. Very tragic.
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is BP a selfish cynical grumpy pr*(k?
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“How curious you use a banking analogy – because that’s exactly where your cap-n-trade taxes will be going.”
I’m not a great fan of cap and trade – but neither am I impressed by the argument that our emmissions are too small to worry about.
“we need both. Grassroots action and mainstream political action. anything less will fail. ”
Historically, ‘mainstream political action’ has a funny habit of suddenly kicking in when the ‘mainstream politicos’ realise they are being left behind by the grassroots. Conversley, ‘mainstream political action’ tends to take energy and resources out of grassroots action. Greens seem to have an odd idea that the two aren’t competing for people’s time and energy.
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>>because you happen to have been born with a silver spoon
I’m from a poor immigrant family, unlike the middle-class silver spoon suckers that inhabit the Green Party.
What were you doing in your school holidays? I was picking tomatoes.
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>>take some time living overseas, in the ‘real’ world.
I did. I lived in the UK. Much better tax structure. But New Zealand is pretty good, although why it often treats the people who earn export revenue as sc*m is beyond me.
Not sure why New Zealand is bending over backwards to facilitate child bashers, but hey. Doesn’t happen in Italy. They hang you from the rafters if you abuse kids….
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>>is BP a selfish cynical grumpy pr*(k?
Might be. Are you a **** ***** ******* ****?
Where is the consistency, Frogger?
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>>sweet FA that you get from your modest taxes here.
Modest?!?!? 50% modest??? (income/gst/acc/power rort/soon to be temperature rort)
What’s a high rate of tax, by your standards?
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Those tempestuous, easily over-heated Italians!
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It’s called passion….
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What’s a high rate of tax, by your standards?
70%
The Swedish top rate is (IIRC) 56% on income and they have a higher GST
BJ
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At least they have much better looking women….
(Ducks for cover)
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And Abba.
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My analysis of NZ’s emissions targets.
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Light relief. You have to love this parody of “Going Green”.
Onion are good at good at this. I suppose I should know more about Taco Bell’s new Green Menu to really appreciate it. But – I can guess.
http://thechillingeffect.org/2009/06/30/going-green-the-wrong-way/
and
Can someone explain why the methane generated by bacteria living in a rumen, and digesting plant material, is bad methane, and hence those bacteria are bad bacteria, while the methane generated by bacteria living in a wetland, rainforest floor, or rice paddy is good methane and hence those bacteria are good bacteria?
Why are people discriminating against New Zealand ’s ruminant bacteria simply because of where they choose to live?
Whatever happened to the Bacterial Bill of Rights?
Where is the UN when our own decent hard-working Kiwi Bacteria (K – coli) need them most?
The European satellite ENVISAT measured over a three year period the world wide close-to-the-surface-methane-concentrations. The average values are shown here (source: University of Bremen http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:80/sciamachy/NIR_NADIR_WFM_DOAS/).
Open it up and scroll down to methane and then see how much impact our ruminants are having on atmospheric methane compared to the Northern Hemisphere sources.
Kiwi – coli of the world unite!
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any cheques in the mail from exxonmobil owen…? hows the climate sceptics ’science’ group going..?
latest from Nick Smith reports:
‘I would also add that I wasn’t going to speak until Nick made the blunder of saying… “well if you’re in the Green Party all you care about is the environment”… at which point I’m glad to say the crowd went a bit nuts and shouted him down.
I got incensed at that and decided he needed to be put right, so I did. I also rebutted his calls that 40% is very tough and means that many jobs will be lost, I invited him to talk to his Green MP colleagues about their Green New Deal which potentially creates 43,000 jobs and told him if he’s seriously concerned about jobs then he’ll make himself aware of it. I was the lucky last speaker, decided he didn’t need that many facts cause he’s heard them or knows them already. I made the point that we don’t need science to tell us what’s going to happen, look at Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to show that when a population destroys their resources there follows the immediate destruction of their civilisation. I told him he was lucky that the majority of the speakers had been supportive and optimistic because they didn’t have to be, and finished up with saying if he believes in democracy at all he will take away the fact that Wellington has spoken in 100% consensus for a 40% decrease.
Some fantastic things I felt that were done or said; one speaker asked all the under 35s in the room to stand, it was a good 50% which is awesome and showed that the young people were aware and concerned of the issues. Another asked everyone in the room to stand if they believed the target should be 10% or more, 95% of the room stood, then he said stay standing for 20%, then 30% and then 40% or more. All of those people remained standing..’
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Owen…
We have been discriminating against the wetlands bacteria by taking away their homes and giving free rumens to the others. ?
I looked at the site earlier. I reckon I can imagine that I see some slight effect of our presence in a band around 42 south, but I have a good imagination.
We have an obligation to do what we can… I don’t think eliminating the herds is a good idea, but we CAN eat less meat. One might consider that the CO2-CH4 cost should be paid by the person eating the meat.
The wind here is orders of magnitude faster and the mixing much more pronounced. We create a smear… as does Argentina. Over much of the North, the air moves less rapidly and predictably. It makes more concentrated blotches. How much atmospheric mixing takes place is the question.
I would be loathe to draw conclusions from the pictures.
Thanks
BJ
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Owen McShane Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
> Can someone explain why the methane generated by bacteria living in a rumen, and digesting plant material, is bad methane, and hence those bacteria are bad bacteria, while the methane generated by bacteria living in a wetland, rainforest floor, or rice paddy is good methane and hence those bacteria are good bacteria?
I think you’re on to something here – no good answer comes to mind.
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trees, great job. Nick is clearly in over his head. He’s not even looking for solutions, he’s looking for excuses. And those are always easy to come by.
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Im looking forward to him debating coal later and seeing if he has any difference in opinion from Gerry Brownlee and more importantly if so, what he plans to do about it.
Also keen to hear of ANY national party climate policy outside of a weak ETS
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keen to hear of ANY national party climate policy
Free Pass for Farmers
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>>the fact that Wellington has spoken in 100% consensus for a 40% decrease.
Oh FFS. Don’t you mean “100% of the enviro-nutters at the meeting?”
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>>Another asked everyone in the room to stand if they believed the target should be 10% or more, 95% of the room stood, then he said stay standing for 20%, then 30% and then 40% or more. All of those people remained standing..’
Stay standing anyone who has the barest grasp of economics….
40% will see mass poverty, no welfare, and no health system.
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No BP
I was there.
I didn’t see or hear any dissent at all.
It was REALLY one-sided.
BJ
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>>It was REALLY one-sided.
Why is that any surprise to anyone? The only people who would know about such an event, let alone attend, are greenies.
They’re not in the least bit representative of Wellington. Well, 7% of it maybe.
That would be Aro Valley….
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differs from the 350 and other reports i have heard – be keen to know if anyone filmed it
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it was publicly advertised Peter – i heard there were 75 seats and around 400 turned up
someone also said:
‘PS. heckle him nick smith) about happy valley – he hated it.’
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are you saying only green party members and voters…
CARE about the environment and kiwi, clean beaches etc peter…. sounding like a bit of a sarah palin comment… perhaps
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Public meetings on the politics if the environment, in Welllington, on a Monday night, are going to attract a specific crowd. That crowd is not the least bit representative of Wellingtonians in general.
>>‘PS. heckle him nick smith) about happy valley – he hated it.’
…and that comment confirms it. Let me guess – a lot of students and the rest made up of green party activists and voters?
Remind me of how many Wellington seats you hold again?
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Peter – you’re smarting because ‘your crew’ were no-shows. Shows the depth of committment to the issue. Where were they? Asleep at the wheel.
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I doubt most Wellintonians give a toss about the ETS.
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I do see your point Peter – How on earth could Wellingtonians be expected to get to a meeting in Wellington? Granted though, Monday night, in Wellington
Those are almost insurmountable challenges for your team, as evidenced by the turn out. How those others managed it I’ll never know!
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peter the reason someone would heckle nick is because he is silent on issues related to coal (might be something to do with his boss gerry brownlee thinking coal is sexy and being its frontman)
also its stupid to export coal to china when we want to send the world a message about how to stop climate change and move towards a low carbon future
here are some other comments from someone who went to the wellington consultation (from a young and non cynical attendee):
‘Many spoke about agriculture in a good way, farmers are not stupid and should be given more credit. A very limited number felt they didn’t trust the Government and it needed to be a peoples movement, and were answered by others, including myself, that we feel it needs to be a multifaceted approach from all levels and groups.
Nick had mentioned trees and said they weren’t the answer, what he seemed to do though was be focused on pine trees which would be logged at some point, somebody please remind him in an upcoming meeting that there are other trees, including if he had forgotten native species.’
this is not a minor or ‘green’ issue – it is global and it is also a New Zealand issue.
clean and green…..? yeah right … or yeah we might be…. what would it take for that to be more than a marketing slogan (that rumour has it gerry brownlee et al want to remove in time for the rugby world cup…)
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perhaps we do agree on something. id rather emissions reductions and green job programmes – clean energy energy jobs and so on here than a bogus trading scheme
————-
BluePeter Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I doubt most Wellintonians give a toss about the ETS.
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It’s like saying “why weren’t there many Auckland greens at the Top gear show in Auckland”?
The answer is such a meeting is not important to them.
Same goes with obscure meetings in Wellington about government policy on a trading scam few people concern themselves with.
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Peter – those 400 who spoke with one voice at the meeting, calling for significant action….
It’s called passion….
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Love your Top Gear analogy. Should I, do you think, get onto the Top Gear web-site and berate those who attended the Auckland show?
Can you see it Peter?
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it was a consultation meeting about NZs emissions reduction target for 2020.
clarity can be a good thing peter, rather than always venting, or talking about something that has nothing to do with the subject being like something.
i imagine you could be a rather surreal poet.
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If I know Wellington, and I think I do, that meeting would have consisted of:
Peace Move Aoteroa
GreenPeace
Green Party Members
Victoria University Arts Students
A few bods fro the Ministry
Some hippies
A smattering of housewives from Wadestown
And a dribble of Ngaio residents who drove there in their Audis (they parked underneath the building)
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I should have pointed out that I did not stay the whole meeting… so things certainly happened there later that I certainly did not see, but in the first dozen speakers it was a clean sweep for 40%.
BP…
Whether our kids will have welfare or healthcare is up to THEM.
Whether they will have a habitable planet to live on is up to US.
Mass poverty is a relative thing… I don’t see it happening myself, but relative to everyone just dying of starvation and war it looks pretty good.
Everyone on this planet IS going to be poorer unless some scientists and engineers somewhere come up with a real miracle. Being an engineer who has spent a lot of time with scientists I can tell you that there isn’t a lot left in the bag of tricks. We have smoke and mirrors on our side… literally. Particulate pollution reducing the effects of some of the CO2 and mirrors in space.
We really need to reduce our numbers, our production of “stuff” and the ever escalating consumption of stuff that is a result of our Debt-Based, Fraction-Reserve Fiat currency. Capitalist subverted by the bankers.
respectfully
BJ
BJ
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Those you described earlier as being ‘in power’ were to clueless to turn up and gave the floor to those who are passionate about the environment. Your ‘after the fact’ attack on those who did make the effort to speak on the issue, who did get out on a Monday night, who do think the issue is important, is infantile.
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Peter, I think you are so intent on your position you have refused yourself the option to actually read or uptake other opinions.
I am a Young Green, a born and bred farmer, I’ve had jobs in many sectors including professional office jobs, I’ve worked for Toyota New Zealand and love Top Gear. I’m also intelligent enough to see that when scientists all over the world can prove that Climate Change is affecting our planet that this is real.
I am frustrated when someone like yourself, who is clearly not stupid or inarticulate, paints the Green Party as a bunch of hippies.
Hippies I am not… and never intend to be. I represent instead Greens who believe the economy is just as important and must go hand in hand with environmental matters. I hope it reassures you that we have many economists in the Young Greens as well as very intelligent graduates from all areas.
Believe me when I say that the Greens have members from every profession and level of society. I challenge you Peter to find out, without being cynical, about the positives that can come from reducing emissions in the areas you mentioned were of concern; welfare, poverty and health systems. Such measures have been successful in Germany and elsewhere.
Peter, the less cynical you are, the less people will attack your views and given that you have been successful in life I have no doubt you might have some advice that other non-cynical people will be prepared to listen to.
You have been challenged.
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George – your challenge to BluePeter, is wasted, in my view. You’ll have missed his claim, made way back, that he is here on Frogblog for ‘the game’ and nothing else. He’s quite able to converse convivially with any commenter, but regularly reverts to demeaning all and sundry. I guess that’s his ‘game’.
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If only this government would take the necessity to cut carbon emissions as seriously as they take cuts to welfare, education, and health we could have 10% reductions this year!
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# macro Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
> If only this government would take the necessity to cut carbon emissions as seriously as they take cuts to welfare, education, and health we could have 10% reductions this year!
I know about the education cuts, but have they actually made any cuts to health or welfare? As I’m on a waiting list for surgery I’ve been listening out for any news of health spending cuts, but I haven’t heard of any.
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Actually YGsGeorge, you’re a breath of fresh air. The likes of Greenfly get what they give, and then act all surprised at the inevitable result.
>> to see that when scientists all over the world can prove that Climate Change is affecting our planet that this is real.
I’m coming around to that view.
>>I am frustrated when someone like yourself, who is clearly not stupid or inarticulate, paints the Green Party as a bunch of hippies.
Well, when people constantly take extreme positions, I have problems taking them seriously. They are activists. They have an agenda and they exist at the boundaries of reason. I find them no more credible than the Ayn Rand ideologues. I get their position, but their I find their lack of pragmatism frustrating.
There are real economic consequences to these decisions, some of which are self-defeating if the aim is to increase human welfare, especially in this country.
If we’re not VERY careful about negotiating equitable positions, we’ll get inequitable outcomes for out children. This call for 40% – what is that? It’s like a p*ssing competition. Why not make it 45? How about 63? 90?
I genuinely fear that we’ll offer ourselves up as sacrificial lambs, and all that will achieve is to move production elsewhere. Countries are taking POSITIONS.
There be dragons.
>> the Young Greens as well as very intelligent graduates from all areas.
Sure, but I was one once, too. Well, I guess some would argue that intelligence on my part is debatable
Experience counts for something, too…
>>Peter, the less cynical you are, the less people will attack your views and given that you have been successful in life I have no doubt you might have some advice that other non-cynical people will be prepared to listen to.
I’m not bothered by being attacked. People can choose to listen or not.
I say what I think to be true.
>>You have been challenged.
Thanks
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BP has got a point about dramatic emission reductions hurting the economy.
In another thread I showed that a 40% global carbon dioxide emission reduction would mean the global per capita emissions would have to fall to around the level that Botswana currently has. To a certain extent, the standard of living is related to the per capita emissions. Obviously there are large variations. For example New Zealand has much lower per capita emissions than Australia because a large portion of its electricity is generated from renewable sources instead of burning coal. However, by and large one can see that the developed nations have larger per capita emissions than the less developed nations.
Now if the world has to achieve the per capita emissions level of Botswana, how can we avoid having a similar standard of living to Botswana? The answer has to be through the use of technology. Of course population reduction would also help (and is probably vital), because then the per capita emissions could actually increase whilst maintaining the same total emissions. Can technology drag the average standard of living from something like that of Botswana to a level the developed nations would be happy with, yet retain the per capita emissions of Botswana? I don’t know the answer to this question for certain, but have a very strong suspicion that technology is not currently up to the task.
So what I am getting at is that a reduction in the standard of living of the developed world may be necessary if carbon dioxide emissions are to be reined in. I don’t hear Green politicians (or any politicians advocating emissions reductions) saying this; it would simply be too unpopular. Unfortunately what is popular and what is necessary are not always the same thing.
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thanks this is very useful link.. going to the site
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>>BP has got a point about dramatic emission reductions hurting the economy.
And especially when the differing size of the sacrifice New Zealand makes will achieve nothing.
Let’s say in order to join the club, we must destroy a large pile of banknotes. This money would have otherwise been used for health, welfare and education. Do you want to destroy a large pile, or a really, really massive pile? The outcome, in terms of club membership and global temperature, is exactly the same, no matter what pile we choose.
Secondly, New Zealand is being treated unfairly. As a nation, we don’t have 60m people, like Britain does, we don’t have a lot of coal fired generation, and we depend heavily on a sector of the economy that will be near impossible to reduce emissions (cows) without destroying the sector, of shifting production to other countries.
We’re already a tiny part of the temperature problem. So where is this figure of 40% coming from? It sounds arbitrary to me.
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YGsGeorge,
YGsGeorge = Georgina M?
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The 40% figure is arbitrary in that the real goal (from memory) is 80% by 2050 to reduce carbon to 350ppm. It should be obvious that we can’t start this in 2049, so some interim targets are required AND a programme to get there, which is where this govt will really fail. 40% overall is Greenpeace’s number. The Green Party has suggested 40% for non-ag only, with 20% for ag, which would provide about 30% overall. There is an argument to say the first 30-40% will be the easier, low hanging fruit, so should be able to be achieved sooner.
BludgerPeter has a point of course. If everyone else in the world does their fare share, it won’t matter that we don’t do ours. Likewise, we depend on the rest of the world for our survival no matter what we do. Its an interesting negotiating stance though. I wonder how others would react? How long will it be before our bludging affects our trade status, for instance?
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hey !..all you cap ‘n traders..
..read this..and weep..
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/the-dark-side-of-climate-change-its-already-to o-late-cap-and-trade-is-a-scam-and-only-the-few-will-survive/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Peter – exciting to see you take up YGsGeorge’s challenge!
I challenge you Peter to find out, without being cynical, about the positives that can come from reducing emissions in the areas you mentioned were of concern; welfare, poverty and health systems
Looking foward to you first response.
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oh..!..it’s james lovelock/gaia..
..and his latest predictions..
..eh..?
..and all i can say is “whoar!”..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Did anyone go to the Auckland meeting last night? Any feedback?
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Lovelock speaks the truth:
““Most of the ‘green’ stuff is verging on a gigantic scam,” Lovelock told the New Scientist shortly before the release of his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. “Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning.”
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“Public meetings on the politics if the environment, in Welllington, on a Monday night, are going to attract a specific crowd. That crowd is not the least bit representative of Wellingtonians in general. ”
Thanks BP. Unfortunately, this is what the government offered as a ‘consultation’ opportunity. Personally I didn’t go as (a) I had something else on and (b) I presumed the meeting would get the same response from government as it has from you: “the people who came didn’t give us the message we wanted so they must be unrepresentative”.
But as you keep saying , climate change response has potential economic impacts, therefore it was not merely a meeting on “the politics of the environment”. Apparently all those concerned with the economic implications couldn’t be bothered turning up. Or smugly assumed that the government isn’t going to listen tio the ‘consultation’ anyway. Unfortunately they’re probably right.
“I doubt most Wellintonians give a toss about the ETS.”
Perhaps, so they won’t mind the people who do care making the policy then?
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>>Perhaps, so they won’t mind the people who do care making the policy then?
We voted National for a reason. They’ll put the brakes on this nonsense.
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Peter – YG’sGeorge’s challenge!
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I’ve answered it. Perhaps not to your satisfaction, but that is of no concern to me.
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I challenge you Peter to find out, without being cynical, about the positives that can come from reducing emissions in the areas you mentioned were of concern; welfare, poverty and health systems
No you haven’t.
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BP
I don’t doubt Lovelock’s sincerity on that point, nor his accuracy about the problem with trading. Nor indeed do I question his conclusions on many accounts.
But Cap & Trade is the only game in town at the moment, because the bankers control the planet and they WILL have their pound of flesh.
Moreover, mitigation of what is going to happen is important… if it can be achieved.
I am however, close to the tipping point myself here. Because my pessimism about the future is very little short of Lovelock’s own. It may be that we here in NZ should soon (now?) start to maximize our preparations for dystopia in preference to minimizing our impact on our current utopia.
Right now I see a slender chance that we can make it all work and avoid catastrophe. The 40% target is an attempt to seize that chance.
I see a far more likely scenario of conflicts and climate refugees from all directions – from 2020-2060… past that they will lose the ability to travel across the oceans. Optimism isn’t justified.
Nor is there any reason to believe that the carrying capacity of NZ will be improved. We are the proud possessor’s of a small lifeboat which MAY sustain us if we are careful and prepared… and we must be prepared too … to prevent boarders from swamping it.
Maybe we should be building wind farms in rather more aggressive ways, stockpiling resources and building more self-sufficiency into our islands.
I am of the opinion that we have to go to Copenhagen with a 40% target and try hard to get that global goal adopted by everyone, fairly and equitably spread across the planet. Cap&trade should be replaced by convergence, but that we can’t do that right now. We have had enough trouble to get c&t passed, paying off the bankers to do so.
But if we don’t get that agreement out of Copenhagen.. if the human management of the planet falls short as it is all too likely to do…
What position does the party take THEN?
Then I reckon that as a nation we must shift to bunkering up for a period in which:
1. Storms hit us harder.
2. Rainfall is heavier and more sporadic
3. The ocean rises fast and does NOT stop (I stand by my prediction of 2 meters by 2100) but 10 meters by 2200 and 25 by 2300 is quite possible.
4. Climate refugees arrive in increasing numbers. The first wave will be Australians, and they will come before the worst hits, as their land dries beyond survivable limits.
5. Boat people will start trying to navigate here… The sea will kill many of them. Will we have to kill in order to survive? Will we have the ability? If it is necessary?
( I know that will get a howl from some of my fellow Greens, but it is a QUESTION. I did not make a moral judgment or give an answer. My children may have to work out an answer to that one )
6. Export markets will disappear. Money will change its character back to redeemable currencies. Banks will be local or non-existent.
7. Imports of fossil fuels will have ceased.
There is no “green” future that does not include survival.
In some respects this future represents a “non-green” result and some people in the party will not be pleased with what needs to be done to adapt to it. Most of it is sensibly green , sustainability is vitally important always… but some things like military preparedness, importing a real rabbit predator (at risk to native fauna) and taking risks with plantations of “exotic” species like cacao and coffee and other stuff that will have to be grown HERE if it is to survive at all. Those things go against the grain for some.
Yet things will have to be made here if they are to be had at all. All the fancy electronics will last only as long as the spare parts IN COUNTRY hold out. New ones will stop appearing except as WE build them.
A solar panel fab plant would be a good idea.
An electronics foundry, also good.
Primitive disk drive technology will probably return because the fancy stuff is too hard and the plants that made it, gone.
Libraries will contain paper books again.
It will not matter if the Chinese can make a thousand of something for the price of one of ours in the beginning. The chances of them retaining their capability is vanishingly small. The survival prizes will go to those who can do things sustainably and from their own resources.
Nothing good comes of losing technological capabilities. The risk to the species is great. The risk to civilization is greater.
We are in a HEAP of trouble.
respectfully
BJ
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“Maybe we should be building wind farms in rather more aggressive ways, stockpiling resources and building more self-sufficiency into our islands.”
I agree, BJ.
IF this is a real problem, and it may well be, then we’re better off building sustainable infrastructure than indulging in this global carbon trading con that achieves absolutely nothing and leaves no money to build the infrastructure that may well keep the place inhabitable.
It’s a good bet either way. Build more hydro, grow more bio-fuel, grow more food.
Take a position that benefits us. Everybody else is.
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>>Climate refugees arrive in increasing numbers. The first wave will be Australians, and they will come before the worst hits, as their land dries beyond survivable limits.
Dunno. Can’t they go nuclear and desalinate?
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It’s a call to arms bj! Now you’re talking. I do support your ‘proposal’ that we do all we can to secure agreement out of Copenhagen then if that fails, bunker up (as you so graphically describe).
My bunkering is already well advanced, but there is micro and macro ‘bunkering’ to debate now.
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I see you guys are starting to come around to my GW position.
Instead of using our resources to prepare NZ to survive GW, we are going to hand them over to goldman sachs via Cap & Trade.
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Imagine we are all in a boat that has sprung a leak..
“Quick everyone! If we work together, we can plug the hole and save all our skins!”
“Nah! We’re too busy strapping on our own life-jackets to give our time to mending that hole and anyway, we didn’t make it!”
Ship of Fools
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Is an alternative approach to emissions trading a commitment to reducing emissions? (ie) why waste money. We can build energy efficient houses, towns and cities and all these things will have to be done anyway?
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# jh Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
> Is an alternative approach to emissions trading a commitment to reducing emissions? (ie) why waste money. We can build energy efficient houses, towns and cities and all these things will have to be done anyway?
Well, the aim of emissions trading is to encourage savings through that sort of thing anyway – the trading itself doesn’t reduce emissions.
Were you thinking of regulations to require houses and cities to be more energy efficient?
subsidies or punitive taxes attached to the technology rather than to the energy?
Labelling regulations to guarantee that consumers knowe how energy-efficient the products or buildings they’re buying are?
I suspect that having some of those approaches PLUS a price on carbon would be a more effective way to reduce emissions than not having a price on carbon or relying solely on a price on carbon.
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I forgot how the damn thing works
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Instead of businesses which pollute buying credits overseas why not tax them and put the money into energy saving infrastructure?
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That was Green policy for over a decade until the LabNats torched it in 2005 and made an ETS the only game in town.
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BP, The biggest desalination plant in the Southern Hemisphere is planned to be built near Melbourne. It won’t be using nuclear generated electricity. The state government claims renewable energy will be purchased to offset the energy used by the plant, but I don’t think this will be from new sources, just from existing sources. Therefore total CO2 emissions are likely to increase as a result of the plant being built.
See http://cleanocean.org/index_general.asp?menuid=040.090.020 for more information.
Despite having large reserves of uranium, it is cheaper for Australia to burn coal to generate electricity, and supposedly there are several hundred years supply of coal in Australia.
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Thanks for sharing the link.
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not hard at all
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Hey Jarbury, I did and posted this in another thread (he is Dr Smith):
Oh what manner of man is able to quote himself..?
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Oz can go nuclear if they wish. They can also go solar. They have WAY more sun and sunny days than just about anyone. I don’t think that will change except for maybe getting even more pronounced.
The thing is, they have to go in some direction before the climate hammers them.
The point I made INCLUDES an obligation to give the 40% cap our support and help others to come to it. We CAN (maybe) prevent the planet from going into uncontrollable feedback. The actions required are pretty clear. That would be better by far than pushing the planet over the edge.
It would be best if we managed to NOT start with the methane clathrates erupting from the sea bed and the methane releasing from the tundra, and the sea-ice disappearing, because none of those rather MASSIVE feedbacks are contained in the IPCC and if they start, we’re finished.
I’d suggest that we keep our eye on those, even if we get a 40% agreement (odds 10-1 against) as the odds that we hit one of those feedbacks even at plus 2 degrees are still on the order of 1 in 5. At plus 3 the odds look more like 3 in 5 and at plus 4 they go to unity. We get an agreement with Russia or Canada to put a research team up there watching the tundra. A monitoring team to watch the sub-sea clathrates.
Those would give us early warning. Once they start going we’ve got no chance at all of pulling it back (short of CATS). Given the price tag of failure we could even consider doing it with EXPENSIVE access but I don’t think we’re going to have the ability or use it in time.
BJ
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BJ if the methane starts erupting then we can look into DATS(Dirty Access To Space) instead of CATS.
So what if we let off a few nukes getting us into space, under your above scenario the earth isn’t going to care about some small nuclear fall out.
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I reckon that as long as it is cheap it can be done. It won’t be NZ.
I don’t think Orion is the way to launch things from a habitable planet.
This looks hopeful…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/energy-environment/03renew. html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=china%20wind&st=cse
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Wind turbines we can probably get cheap.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PICKENS_WIND_ENERGY?SITE=TXS AE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-07-07-16-43-41
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looking about i don’t see many people making savings on emissions although people aren’t going to change their cars in a hurry. Myself I ride a bike but that is partly a fitness thing (and parking) but also at night guilt over global warming influences whether I use the fire or not. Things sure have changed since the days of arguing over the open fire smoke > CO > CO2.
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auckland feedback-
more blog articles coming soon -
re coal and happy valley – exports to india and china:
someone said:
I was standing in line for the mic when he was asked this question. I seriously could not believe my ears when he said that! ‘If we don’t sell them coal, someone else will.’ Dude lost all the credibility he had tried to gain in the first half hour of the meeting.
sign on blog has this http://www.signon.org.nz/blog/nz-govt-barricaded-in-cubicle-no-intenti on-of-emerging
sign on blog comment:
Yes, I was rather disappointed and outraged especially when the minister commented on coal exports to India.
This kind of attitude is the reason why we are witnessing the dramatic increase in severity of the impacts of climate change.
I think this is the root of all problems and if we can change this sort of attitude, half of the problem and our work is done.
————————
videos of the wellington consultation are available on youtube and the 350 movement website http://www.350.org.nz/
auckland videos may be coming soon.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scDumFM4Apc&feature=related – Nick Smith gets heckled and questioned about coal exports and NZ exporting coal to China – increasing their overuse of coal…
at odds with a previous quote (also like the insult to the green party… smart move… maybe he is anti the MOU…?
Nick Smith talking about coal exports and Happy Valley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scDumFM4Apc&feature=related
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treesoftomorrow – thanks for that link. Watched Smith wrapping his forked tongue around the coal lie. He’s is not giving one inch. Let’s not fool ourselves. The RMA changes are going to be severe. They’ve been discussed/design and ’signed off’ long ago with the businesses that stand to go rampant in the very near future eg. the quarrying industry as signalled in today’s news. I was at the BlueGreen AGM in Te Anau prior to the election and the things I saw and heard there are all coming in to being week by week. The high country tenure issue was a dominant one at that meeting. Wait and watch. Smith is not a trustworthy fellow. At all.
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Greenfly,
Well if you make the assumption that the world is screwed and we should just focus on ensuring NZ survives then his arguement is quite rational re: coal. Even not making that assumption there is a certain rationality to the arguement considering the vast availibility of the resource; our not selling it will make minimal price difference and so the same amount will be purchased anyway though at prices insignificantly higher, the same amount of arbon will be belched into the atmosphere and we will be worse off as the state has to support unemploied miners. One could even suggest that exporting the coal could actually decrease carbon emmisions if the money is spent on sustainable generation, and even if it didint NZ itself would be better off.
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Sapient – I’ve not yet made the ‘world is screwed’ assumption and while Smith’s argument might be rational, (rhymes with National), that doesn’t make it the most suitable. Focussing on ‘ensuring New Zealand survives’ doesn’t entail isolationism and withdrawl from the global effort, in fact, as with building a resiliant local community on the village scale, I would argue that it is vital to spread the work and bring other communities with you, so that they aren’t later driven to make ‘unwelcome visits’ in order to avail themselves of your bounty. If that means your own village is somewhat less prepared than it might otherwise be, due to the efforts spent outside of your borders, so be it. The long game is the one to bear in mind.
When Smith made his statement about the futility of not selling coal overseas, someone called out ‘leadership’ and I cheered from in front of my laptop. The ‘if we don’t do it, someone else will’ argument might well be rational, but I believe it is wrong in many instances and provides an excuse to do what ever the caller wants.
I felt too that the heckling was too restrained by far. We are being too polite to the likes of Mr Smith, presumably because people believe that he will ‘take our concerns on board’. Fat chance.
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Greenfly,
I certainly hope that the world does not turn out as all evidence would suggest it is likely to. I certainly hope that diplomacy will be able to work. But I feel obligated to take account of the, more than likely, event of diplomacy failing. While the world seems to be coming around I think it is not dissimilar to the titanic trying to change its course and avoid the iceburg too late.
The world is vastly over populated and will be even more so as climate change decreases our food supply and increases our popuation. Politicians will be despirate, they will act in self-preservation; I see much dispute over resources. I dont see people jumping to help each other. Its the prisoners dillema really. The best option is that we work together but failing that the best option is to act entirly for ourselves, anything else produces an inferior outcome.
In all truth im not overly worried about climate change, I have no reason to be (pun unintended though apt). But the whole business of climate change is likely to produce a great deal of interesting political interaction. Prehaps the most acheivable thing we could do right here and now to save this planet is to relase a virus which kills every nine in ten humans and call it the revenge of gaia. Would be a short term fix but would buy us a couple of generations.
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Sapient – Titanic eh! Now if the passengers on board had been more knowledgable about the ship, it’s course and the politics behind its first voyage, they’d perhaps have been able to avert that disaster, had they had the gumption to speak up and act. On the other hand, had they rushed to the lifejackets instead, the result would have been… well… we’ve seen that one played out graphically ( Why didn’t Leonardo speak up the second time around? he knew what would happen!)
One person couldn’t have rallied those passengers, but a team could have. We have the team. It’s not as though we haven’t sighted the iceberg. We just have to get out of stearage and tap the captain on the shoulder.
Abandoning the ‘turn the ship’ model leaves us with strapping on our life jackets and the water is going to be cold enough to freeze us before we get too far (has my analogy got too far from reality? Yes? I’ll stop here)
Virus eh? You’d want to be in tip-top shape when that sweeps through. Eat raw, organicly grown veges. Get plenty of sleep. Don’t go to the Warehouse.
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Greenfly,
Yes, IF they had been more knowledgable. They could have been, but they chose to enjoy their wealth or to pursue the chance of becoming wealthy themselves instead of taking the safe/rational approach or bothering to learn more. They beleived those whos money was tied up in the “unsinkability” of the ship rather than the laws of physics and probability. Yes, the passengers could have made the captain take a more safe path at the cost of their convienence if someone had rallied them, but would they have listened? Would the rich have had bothered to stop eating cavier and petition the captain? Would the poor of even been able to make such a petition? Show the rich a peice of iceburg and a shaking ship and they could very well brush you off more often than they listen.
Ships have life rafts and jackets for a reason; theirs a chance they will sink, the rafts and jackets are insurance. The chance of a ship sinking seems to be alot less than the chance of us failing dismally and *loosing our cool*. Its prehaps better to turn the ship alittle less so afew can get on the rafts so that some are certain to survive to tell of the event than to put all energy into turning only to sink and risk it all.
I think ive taken the analogy alittle far, but you get the point im sure.
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Sapient – yes. we’re sunk.
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I sometimes wonder whether, if the Captain had ordered the engines into full reverse, he might have kept the water from coming up QUITE so high so fast.
Understanding that as the ship goes down at the bow it presents a hydrodynamic shape that WILL induce some amount of lift, helping to raise the bow.
However the situation resolves the coal business is not likely to work exactly as Mr Smith expects. IF we refuse to sell the chances are good Oz will consider joining in, and we’d be able to place conditions on the sales that help move the Chinese people further up the renewable’s ladder. I don’t think Obama can refuse the Chinese anything they ask, but the people of the US might be a bit incensed at the mountaintopping in West Virginia (they are)… Who else has substantial amounts of coal to export?
I posted earlier a link to a report that they have already surpassed the US in installation of wind turbines.
So they aren’t doing nothing, but they need a lot more power. Better we should boost the output of aluminium which WE generate from renewable electricity, and displace some of their Al production. That reduces their demand.
respectfully
BJ
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This doesn’t look good at first, but the Chinese per-capita emissions are on
3.84 metric tons per capita in 2004 so a smaller reduction for them would bring them in line with the targets.
Similarly India is at 1.20… if a “convergence” target is considered, they’d have to be allowed to increase to around 2.5 tons.
Finally Russia has reached 10.5, and we’re supposed to pay them credits?
Maybe we don’t Maybe it goes into escrow until they get their act together. I think they can be moved, but not to the tune of 80%.
Finally, I would regard this (for the most part) as posturing for the negotiations. Sharp bargainers prevail in all 3 cultures. We have to be just as sharp.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090708/bs_afp/g8economy;_ylt=AmOxcW2GhWG C3JBSia8jcjAHcggF;_ylu=X3oDMTJnOTRtdGwzBGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDA5MDcwOC9nOGV jb25vbXkEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3BhZ2luYXRlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDZzhyaWZ0c 2VtZXJn
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
I havint covered the titanic since intermediate, but it was my understanding he did put them in full reverse and that was considered a mistake on his part, I could be wrong.
I wonder how hard it would be to convince smith to lobby for purchasing some of those $2billon worth of turbines? He is an engineer after all isint he? Should have some sense.
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>>Sharp bargainers prevail in all 3 cultures. We have to be just as sharp.
Fat chance, when some *start* by demanding some arbitrary figure, such as “40%”. Luckily such people are not in charge.
How about starting by looking at what we, as a country, do most efficiently compared to others, hmmm?
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Coal as a bargining chip, bj?
I like that.
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Sapient – he did put it into reverse
Not soon enough.
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Sapient said; The best option is that we work together
That’s the ‘Call of the Century’, imho.
then said:
but failing that the best option is to act entirly for ourselves
And that’s the option most likely to knee-cap the first. What a conundrum!
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BJ,
I think you have brought up the bargining (J) chip previously. It seems to me that with such a massive supply of coal in order for us to create such conditions we would need to eaither have far more than just NZ and Australia demanding this or we would need to offer a massive discount/subsidy as incentive. I dont see it happening any time soon as in the first instance countries would be too motivated by profit and in the second the money would be far better spent on our own infrastructure. Though could have diplomatic benefits in the *sunken* days ahead.
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Greenfly,
Thats the thing, what we need is a great diplomat, the only way to acheive the best outcome in the prisioners dillema is to build trust between participants, and even then that requires that there is actuay dialouge, in the absence it relies on repeated instances of enlightened self interest. What I ment to point out earlier is that with the coming energy shortages and nutrition shortages the job of that diplomat would be significantly harder. Would need a diplomat significantly greater.
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That was just as he hit the berg… the idea there (I think) was that he should have tried to power into it and the ice would plug the hole.
Once the ship was free of the Ice I do not see any information that it was reversing at speed. If it could have hit 18 knots in reverse the dynamic lift would have been substantial as long as the props stayed in the water.
Maybe. I think they tried to turn and then after ripping a hole in the side for a third the length of the ship (rather than the bow) AND dragging themselves off the ice backwards, they flooded badly. Possibly turning hard and running at speed so that the ship heeled over hard would have worked for a while, but it doesn’t look from the timeline, that there was a lot of time for thinking about it and they would have been too close to the berg to do THAT. It took them not more than 20 minutes to conclude that the ship would sink. That isn’t a lot of time to get damage reports and assessments on a big ship. If they’d taken it on the bow they’d have been playing to their strength, but since they were going as fast as they were, it probably would not have helped.
Dumb they were, running into that berg after being warned by everyone else at sea that there were bergs in the area. The analogy to the denialist culture guiding our current economic system is sort of scary.
respectfully
BJ
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Sapient – the Great Diplomat eh! That’d be bj’s Philosopher King?
It’s time for that figure to step out of the shadows!
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Sapient.. to sell it, you have to have reserves of it. That’s us, and Oz and the USA. There are a few others, but on a national level I don’t think you’ll find too many who will pile coal on ships and sell it to someone to burn while they are at the same time trying to get the world to a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases. Not if an example has been set.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ,
. Prehaps that too is a note for the denialists.
Thanks, I had always wondered why speeding up is seen as a superior option. The ice pluging the hole had never occured to me, nor in truth had the other effects you cite. I spose that is the product of thinking about it only once since you were ten or eleven, shows that one should always review past conclusions in the light of new knowledge. I had thought I did enough of that at present
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Greenfly,
Yes, I thought of making such a suggestion but from the sounds of it our ‘great diplomat’ already has enough on his hands.
BJ,
Fair enough.
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Because governments throughout the world love convincing people that they are in danger and that they can only be saved by letting them take control. Globalists imagine and invent problems and then they offer us the solution, but the solution is always more government, more corporate monopoly, less sovereignty and less free market economy.
The global warming tax scam has kicked in. There’s no time left for a debate they tell us – we don’t want to hear about the medieval warm period, we don’t want to hear about how temperatures dropped as carbon emissions increased for four decades from the 40’s to the 80’s, we don’t want to hear about how the troposphere shows no build up of greenhouse gases, we don’t want to hear about sun activity and its direct correlation with climate change, we don’t want to hear about arctic ice samples showing how CO2 lags behind temperature increase. There’s money to be made and there’s peasants to flog.
Eco-fanatics and power-hungry elitists have taken total control of the global warming bandwagon. Before they choke the life out of modern industrialized civilization by eliminating the source of 80% of the planet’s energy, and in the face of fierce silencing techniques, it is vital to further understand why scientific evidence is not on the side of the theory of human-caused warming.
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Great, another loopy Lib. Just what we need.
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Jimrome,
I would suggest you shouldn’t listen to the government; most politicians lie, deceive and basically can’t be trusted. However I do suggest you should listen to what climate scientists are saying. It is the job of a scientist to be as objective as possible with the evidence which is available. If you can’t trust the scientists to give an objective account of what is known (and knot known) on the subject of global warming, I don’t know who else you can.
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“It is the job of a scientist to be as objective as possible with the evidence which is available. If you can’t trust the scientists to give an objective account of what is known (and knot known) on the subject of global warming, I don’t know who else you can”
And of coarse our faith in scientists should be uncompromising.
They have never done us wrong before, never invented weapons that could end humanity in one exchange, or prescribe Thalidomide for morning sickness, yes scientists are the most trustworthy among us.
Even those on the payroll for an organisation that stands to exponentially increase its power from AGW.
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Individual scientists are human and fallible, but the scientific method is the best thing we’ve got for discovering truth. There is simply nothing better. AGW is true or not regardless of what the UN wants to do. Fortunately in this case there isn’t a real debate as the vast majority of scientists are on one side. And there’s enough of them that this conspiracy theory is just not credible.
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Shunda,
In some ways the successful invention of such weapons proves scientists were competent and doing their job well. There are other issues you are mixing into the argument, and that is whether the research should have been conducted in the first place, and once it was, how the technology should be used.
Now with regards to many climate scientists being on the government’s payroll. I can tell you that the scientists I know have a wide range of political views, from left wing to right, yet they hold similar views on what is happening to the climate, and why it is happening. Then again, you shouldn’t believe me, because maybe I am just saying this in order to try and hide a giant conspiracy.
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“but the scientific method is the best thing we’ve got for discovering truth.”
Yes it is, but it is only a tool, conclusions still need to be made on what that tool is telling us.
“Fortunately in this case there isn’t a real debate as the vast majority of scientists are on one side. And there’s enough of them that this conspiracy theory is just not credible.”
Well its like nuclear energy Valis, sometimes politicians have different ideas on how the “truth” should be used.
The way this plays out could end up being every bit as world changing as the “Manhattan project”
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“I can tell you that the scientists I know have a wide range of political views, from left wing to right, yet they hold similar views on what is happening to the climate, and why it is happening.”
The forces that have wrecked our planet are now about to hijack the environmental movement, whether AGW is true or not is irrelevant now, bigger forces are at play.
Does it not concern you even a little bit about the impending exploitation of the “save the planet” movement by politicians and the mega rich?
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Yes it is, but it is only a tool, conclusions still need to be made on what that tool is telling us.
What its telling us in this case is clear enough. We only have to decide what to do with the info.
Well its like nuclear energy Valis, sometimes politicians have different ideas on how the “truth” should be used.
But denying the truth won’t help you avoid this.
The way this plays out could end up being every bit as world changing as the “Manhattan project”
Could be, Shunda? It most definitely will be even more world-changing. You sense the magnitude, time now to make the final leap.
Does it not concern you even a little bit about the impending exploitation of the “save the planet” movement by politicians and the mega rich?
Of course it does! How can you even ask that after reading what bj ad others have written? So what to do? Your alternative plan seems to be to ignore the problem. You will have to do better than that, Shunda, much much better.
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Qtown meeting to explain Govt’s 2020 emissions goal
CLIMATE Change Issues Minister Nick Smith will attend a public meeting in Queenstown tonight to explain the economic and environmental implications of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
And so will I.
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Shunda,
You write: “The forces that have wrecked our planet are now about to hijack the environmental movement, whether AGW is true or not is irrelevant now, bigger forces are at play.”
Whether AGW is true or not is very relevant. If it is true, then we are heading into deep trouble, irrespective of whether the environmental movement has been hijacked or not.
“Does it not concern you even a little bit about the impending exploitation of the “save the planet” movement by politicians and the mega rich?
Yes, this concerns me a lot. I fear the politicians and mega-rich will dream up schemes that pretend to save the planet, but in reality just enrich or empower themselves while doing stuff all to help the environment.
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Give ‘em hell, greenfly.
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>Give ‘em hell, greenfly.
Will Greenfly drive there?
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A very worthwhile cause on which to burn fossil fuels if need be.
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Will Greenfly drive there?
Car-pooling with Nick.
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I heard Michael Laws on the intro to his show today telling everyone how great a two degree rise would be for NZ, trying to make it sound like it’s our patriotic duty to emit… Sigh, a few more of the suckers that were born many minutes ago will now be harder to reach…
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i’ll take two degrees and a coastal holliday jezzr
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He’s going to get 2 degrees no matter what at this point. So there’s no need for him to emit any more. What a loon.
The question is whether he’s going to get 3 or 4 or 5 degrees and have to move the city of Wellington up to Karori and the city of Auckand into whatever hills are near there.
I still reckon we should be bringing in cacao and coffee plantations pretty quick here. I don’t want to have to do without chocolate and coffee. The shock of withdrawal might easily kill have the population of NZ.
respectfully
BJ
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I know what you mean, lately I seem to be drinking enough coffee to enliven a corpse… I think I should try sleeping again, I remember that it was a good thing and I enjoyed it…
I guess we all react differently to night shift…
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karori – inland frosts – unless of course you’d like a nice reactor to warm the ol gully up – but thairs a fair collection of bones on the hill.
Sorta like Hats Off Boys, We’re In Karori…..
loon, bj; shakespearian no?
You reckon x
2?
I say go x6 and measure levels – the marble castles in miami will sink by the hundred trillion – hungry world then ? well the north pole is goin going….
and greenland is breaking up – and if you can link me to a Current map of antarctica i’d be fascinated….warm sun today…
that night shift can ruin your health! Carefull…jezza – collect 5 dogs anywhere south of Palmerston.
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bjchip said:
“I still reckon we should be bringing in cacao and coffee plantations pretty quick here. I don’t want to have to do without chocolate and coffee. The shock of withdrawal might easily kill have the population of NZ.”
(Hope the formatting works – the help page for formatting gives ERROR 404)
That shock would certainly put my health in danger. We could justify it on the grounds that it would improve our balance of payments position, and it would also reduce the GHG emissions from transporting both the coffee and chocolate to NZ and whatever goods we are selling to pay for them away from NZ.
It would also make it harder for would-be immigrants to bribe our border security
Trevor.
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… Bitter … Yuck …
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Shameless attempt to garner comment numbers – here’s one more Frog
For the record I dont think it makes a blind bit of difference what NZ does – we are not a carbon flea in a herd of giraffe.
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Sounds like all the meetings are being very well attended, with a very strong message for a 40% reduction by 2020.
Interesting that the G8 group seems to be moving towards an 80% reduction by 2050 – makes our 50% target look a bit “third world”. Though on the other hand 2050 targets are a bit pointless – the damage will have been well and truly done by then.
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important to remember that the year-on-year measure is done in September. In other words, the melt season is only really started.
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
BJ
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x5? You mean plus 5 degrees. I reckon a minimum of plus 4 but I think that conventional economic activity will stop rather abruptly sometime before that, as the sheeple figure out how they’ve been fleeced.
Picture…. Hummers everywhere rolled and trashed. Mobs tearing apart factories and certain office buildings.
I want those plantations.
BJ
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Plus 6 degrees, and I want a small cigar factory
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# jarbury Says:
July 10th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
> Though on the other hand 2050 targets are a bit pointless – the damage will have been well and truly done by then.
2050 is also far enough away that current world leaders can make promises about 2050 targets without taking responsibility, because they won’t be in power then.
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# Mark Says:
July 11th, 2009 at 3:19 am
> Plus 6 degrees, and I want a small cigar factory
I want to seize Greenfly’s permaculture garden
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kahikatea – I’ll fight you with my little transparent wings and sucking mouth-parts! Nah! I’ve got plenty to share, not just here, but out in my other gardens which are spread throughout our village. My suggestion – get planting – every town should have food growing everywhere – even along side of roads – I’m growing masses of hazels this season to plant out where ever I find a spot. It’s easy to do and may provide forage for hungry people later on. Just do it. Cardoons. Artichokes. Asparagus. Perennials are the answer. Rhubarb. Sea beet.
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Wernt they planting vegies down in welly along busy streets for looks? given all the polutants I would imagine they would make a good mechanism to *get rid of* the homeless.
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mmm..!..progressive local gummint..!
..tasty..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/san-franciscos-latest-eco-innovation-growing-p roduce-almost-everywherethis-is-what-a-progressive-local-government-lo oks-likecd-someone-plse-email-this-one-to-the-local-govt-numbnuts-we-a re-inflicted-w/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I’ve been following the Minister around the country and you can read my thoughts and what I’ve said to him here in Dunedin and Christchurch here:
http://www.signon.org.nz/blog/do-it-as-a-kiwi
http://www.signon.org.nz/blog/target-talks-in-dunedin-electric
I think two important issues that the Minister is failing to look at are the economics benefits of taking action on climate change and the risks to our economy from climate impacts and to our valuable clean and green brand if we continue indictaing we won’t be singning on to our fair share – 40% by 2020.
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Gareth,
Only 40%? doesint seem like you to wimp out so badly.
P.S. About time you changed the site you name links to.
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NBR (editors insight) sees victory in climate change debate:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/nevil-gibson/no-worries-climate-change-de bate-goes-nowhere-fast
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His “side” may win a pyrrhic victpry in the short term. Several of the lies contained in that article are no longer even current, and referring to the WSJ as an authority is sort of bizarre considering their record of scientific incredibility.
Nothing is too bizarre for NBR.
BJ
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The phrase is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius:
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.[1]
wikipaedia
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The WSJ report on which NBR relies so, is actually relying on a guy named Plimer for some of its discussion of the science. “Heaven and Earth” is apparently in its 5th printing, so it is not surprising that TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE MISREPRESENTATION OF THE SCIENCE is prevailing.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/04/the_science_is_missing_from_ia .php
There is probably no worse source of information on this than the WSJ and NBR. They are some of the most productive a55holes in the history of the planet…. and people are still lining up to swallow their sh!t.
I do get a bit angry when someone starts in at stupid and goes downhill from there.
respectfully
BJ
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“James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact.
It points out, for example, … that the CO2 in the atmosphere — to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction — is only 0.001 per cent of the total CO2 held in the oceans, surface rocks, air, soils and life; that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant food; …
All this is scientific fact — which is more than you can say for any of the computer models turning out doomsday scenarios …
One of the things that so irks him about modern environmentalism is that it is driven by people who are ‘too wealthy’. ‘When I try explaining “global warming” to people in Iran or Turkey they have no idea what I’m talking about. Their life is about getting through to the next day, finding their next meal. Eco-guilt is a first-world luxury. It’s the new religion for urban populations which have lost their faith in Christianity. The IPCC report is their Bible. Al Gore and Lord Stern are their prophets.’”
In just two days, the book sold out its 5,000 print run. Five further editions followed in swift succession.”
He believes that Australia will fail to pass its mad global warming legislation in its upper house: “‘I have politicians ringing me all the time’ — the Senate looks likely to reject the bill. If it does so twice, then the Australian government will collapse, a ‘double dissolution’ will be forced and a general election called. ‘Australia is at a very interesting point in the climate change debate,’ says Plimer.
The potential repercussions outside Oz, of course, are even greater. Until this year, environmental legislation has enjoyed a pretty easy ride through the parliaments of the Anglosphere and the Eurosphere, with greener-than-thou politicians (from Dave ‘Windmill’ Cameron to Dave ‘climate change deniers are the flat-earthers of the 21st century’ Miliband) queuing up to impose ever more stringent carbon emissions targets and taxes on their hapless electorates.
Reading Plimer’s Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after 500 pages of heavily annotated prose (the fruit of five years’ research), you are left in no doubt that man’s contribution to the thing they now call ‘climate change’ was, is and probably always will be negligible. Terrifying, because you cannot but be appalled by how much money has been wasted, how much unnecessary regulation drafted because of a ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man- who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml
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wat,
“It points out, for example, … that the CO2 in the atmosphere — to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction…” that tiniest fraction being about 1/3 so far and heading towards 1/2, which is not what I would call a tiny fraction. The CO2 in the oceans also includes a significant human activity contribution, which is why there is increasing concern about ocean acidification. The CO2 in rocks and soils is irrelevant if it is stable, and my understanding is that it is in the form of carbonates and therefore not actually CO2 at all.
You might be left in no doubt that man’s contribution is negligible after reading this book – I expect that I would be left in no doubt about the bias of the author. However thanks to your extracts, I can see that there is no point in my reading this book and contributing to Plimer’s golden retirement.
Trevor.
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If New Zealand with its plentiful and varied forms of renewable energy can’t readily achieve a 40% target, then it is unlikely that other countries will either. We should lead by example because we can.
As for reductions in agricultural CO2 emissions only being achieved by reducing stock numbers – even if that were true, all it means is that we should be exporting less animal produce and more grains and non-animal produce. We could even reduce our flour imports and go back to growing our own in areas that suit grain farming better than the dairy farming that they have been converted to.
Trevor.
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Trevor29 – at the Climate consultation meetings, Nick Smith cited the ‘horrifying spectre’ of having to reduce our stock numbers by half ( shudder in the udder ) and I thought,
‘A farm with 2000 cows, reduced to 1000 … let’s talk!’
No alternatives were suggested, only the ’shocking suggestion’ that stock numbers might fall.
What a con.
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>>What a con
Comparative advantage gone.
Think of PhilU. His income is almost entirely dependent on the meat export trade.
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“No alternatives were suggested, only the ’shocking suggestion’ that stock numbers might fall.”
And what alternatives are you guys suggesting? Capping White Island?
While I am no fan of dirty dairying, we can’t just switch it off tomorrow.
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“Think of PhilU. His income is almost entirely dependent on the meat export trade.”
ha ha!!
How does he sleep at night, he must have deep seated internal conflict, may explain his blog-side manner.
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Defeatists! Necessity is the mother of invention. Retain the status quo and you have no incentive to innovate, develop and improve. The spectre of collapse invoked by you defeatists is hampering our way foward, just as the fossil fuel cheer team is preventing meaningful progress in other fields. Decimate the herds, I say (actually, at 10% decimate goes nowhere near far enough.
Shunda – who said ’switch it off tomorrow’?
The meat export trade – is that it? Is that as far as your imagination extends? You need to read Rod Oram. He has vision.
Shunda – you too.
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# Shunda barunda Says:
July 12th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
> And what alternatives are you guys suggesting? Capping White Island?
While I am no fan of dirty dairying, we can’t just switch it off tomorrow.
No, but we’re talking about targeted reductions to achieve by 2020, not tomorrow.
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“No, but we’re talking about targeted reductions to achieve by 2020, not tomorrow.”
Economically 2020 is tomorrow.
The cheapest way to make a lasting change to getting rid of carbon is to plant trees.
Why is this never talked about? It is the only way to reduce carbon to the levels you suggest.
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New Zealand only has trade advantages in a few areas. Adventure- oriented tourism is one. The other is farming.
We have a number of other innovative industries, but we couldn’t rely on these for most of our income anytime soon. I suggest if we really did have clear advantages in these areas, then these areas would be major earners by now.
It’s not a case of imagination, or lack thereof. It’s a case of these markets taking a very long time to replace.
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New Zealnd needs to develop trade advantages in other areas now. The old areas now threaten our future. We must develop the innovative industries we have begun, and start others in order to secure a future for ourselves and our children. Markets may indeed take a long time to replace. Get started now. Dragging the chain because you lack vision wont cut it. Your suggestion that industries as yet unrealised are not major earners now ignores the dominance of the meat industry for example, which is now showing itself to be a major impediment to our success. You’ll not raise new industries until you begin to slough the old.
Read Rod Oram. Look for ‘lacto-pharmacuticals’ for starters.
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>>New Zealnd needs to develop trade advantages in other areas now.
We are, but we don’t have significant advantages in other areas. If we did, we’d have moved to exploit them.
>>Dragging the chain because you lack vision wont cut it.
So what’s stopping you?
I’m doing it. Get on board with Rod and start investing. Take the risk. Get it out there.
You waiting for some political party to hand you it all on a plate, or something?
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but we don’t have significant advantages in other areas
Organic, ge-free food plants for starters…
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Well, go find your market and do it.
In the UK, organic is less that 2% of the food market. And I think you’ll find they’re focused on local produce, not produce shipped from here. Food miles, and all that.
But hey – I’m sure you’ll put *your* money where your mouth is and find a way, Greenfly
It’s certainly a fast growing sector, although it’s a tiny niche.
“Organic vegetables comprise over 6% of vegetable sales in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. Southern European countries have the lowest market share with less than 1% percent of vegetables sold as organic in Spain.”
Meanwhile, you’ll face a lot of competition from low-wage China:
“China to have 5% share in world organic food market
China will become a nation with high organic food consumption while its volume of organic food production and export will increase at a fast rate over the next decade.”
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Peter – I have and I am. Beyond that obvious example, there are any number of ‘industries’ that could be developed as replacements for an industry that both pollutes our local environment (shall we talk rivers, water tables, soil degradation and loss etc.) and contributes to the global problem of warming. To hold onto it simply because at this point in time, it is advantageous trade-wise, is short sighted and potentially destructive. Look ahead and try to envisage a ‘New Green Way’, a New Green Deal even.
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Wat
The mistakes made by Plimer are so basic and thoroughly explored that it isn’t even amusing anymore. The man flunks basic science when it comes to climate, no matter what credentials he may have gathered as a geologist.
The CO2 in the atmosphere is a classic. Plimer is actually using Khilyuk and Chilingar as a reference. Did you take the trouble to look at Deltoid? Here is a detailed debunking of Chilingar et.al. The commentary is telling. Remember that these are REAL climate scientists, not geologists pretending to know stuff.
respectfully
BJ
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Actually BP, we have one other big advantage if we care to use it. We are very very rich in terms of renewable energy sources.
If Neptune gets a system running in the strait, there will be a fairly large amount of juice available to “do stuff”. It won’t be free, but it will be carbon free, and if the world goes to 40% reductions and carbon tariffs and prices go where they probably have to to do that, it will be difficult for people to undercut us on power hungry operations like smelting aluminium. Similarly the wind can help us “do stuff”.
Sort of in the same place the Arabs were before we realized that there really is a cost to burning all that lovely black stuff. Except we’re starting from a pretty well educated base.
respectfully
BJ
respectfully
BJ
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wat dabney Says:
July 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
“James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose
…………….
surely there will be a response to that Watt are you not aware of it or do you only look at Watt skeptics say?
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I’m not actually going to defend Plimer’s book, not having read it. It seems to be getting a fair bit of coverage though. Ironic really if it should be persuasive misinformation which thwarts the alamists’ lies, rather than the overwhelming scientific evidence.
Consider him a counter, then, to alarmist rent-a-gob Stephen Schneider (”we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”)
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Two degrees of separation, not any more and not any less.
Or in political language, we will make promises “binding” on only future governments – like the binding “promise” back in the 70’s to provide .7% of GDP in foreign aid.
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I’m not actually going to defend Plimer’s book, not having read it.
That’s big of you.
It seems to be getting a fair bit of coverage though. Ironic really if it should be persuasive misinformation which thwarts the alamists’ lies, rather than the overwhelming scientific evidence.
The only thing “overwhelming” is your indoctrination. You haven’t managed to post anything here that bj, et al hasn’t easily shown to be false or misleading. Instead of dealing with their arguments as they have yours, you just move onto the next load of bull, often recycled from a few posts ago.
Consider him a counter, then, to alarmist rent-a-gob Stephen Schneider
The important difference of course is that Schneider has a FAR greater chance of being correct.
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Valis,
I’d ask you for some examples, but we both know I’d be wasting my time.
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And mine, more importantly.
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One can never really exit a situtation with much dignity after having ones bluff called, so you did about as well as can be expected.
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Wat
Thank you for leaving Plimer in limbo where he belongs.
The only reason he came up at all was because I tracked through the NBR article to its source at the WSJ and then read some of ITS source claims. Which led me to Plimer who is absurd and then to Chilingar, who is worse. The example of how scientific drivel is promoted through certain parts of the media is pretty stark.
I did like the quotation I met along the way though:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Philip K. Dick
respectfully
BJ
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Big PKD fan, bj, from whom I got my name
Plimer and Chilingar: anyone think that’s the last we’ll hear of them?
wat, I’m feeling fully in tact, thanks.
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Scarily, BP is rattling the right cages here.
Recently the OECD reminded us how poor our productivity is.
Most folk misunderstand ‘productivity’ when it is applied to a country: it has nothing to do with how hard the workers work, which is the man-in-the-street’s view, its all about the type of businesses we have. When the OECD says we have poor productivity they are using different language to describe what I’ve said as New Zealand is full of low value businesses.
To quote the OECD: “New Zealand is paradoxically at the forefront of the OECD in adopting policies in many areas that have been shown to lead to high per capita income, and yet it still ranks toward the bottom end of the OECD’s productivity league. This performance has many natural and hence unavoidable causes, such as the economy’s small size and geographical isolation. But the root of the problem is a structural deficiency in the capacity to produce tradable goods and services”
While we carry on killing animals and selling them we’ll always be a loser country. We need more Tait Radio and Selecon type companies, world leaders, companies that despite being in the wrong part of the planet produce goods of such quality and value (as perceived by the purchaser) that distance (and to some extent, price) are not major factors in their deciding to buy NZ made.
We simply have the wrong kinds of business owners in NZ. You can make a decent living here running a low value business and thats what has to stop.
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You can make a decent living here running a low value business and thats what has to stop.
What has to stop is not being able to make a BETTER living doing something more productive than buying up real-estate and watching the rent roll in.
Something that Greens are as keen to fix as anyone. Consider the obstacles to it and none of them have their roots in Green policy or politics. Which is why BP is not rattling any cages at all HERE.
BJ
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I’d recommend removal of blinkers for a moment.
You are not wrong about what you say about property, but even if that problem were solved by lunchtime, it still would do nothing to sort out the lack of productivity issue.
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>>Which is why BP is not rattling any cages at all HERE.
None so blind as those who will not see…
We’re sliding down the OECD for a reason, and that slide will be made faster when we foolishly sacrifice our main export earner to the weather Gods (with no change in temperature, either).
No more EnviroSchools. No more welfare. Hello Pacific Island basket case status.
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Its all just so predetermined for BP, but I see the straw man again, or a few even. There’s the big assumption that we can’t possibly meet a decent emissions reduction target without killing cows and exports. But there have been plenty of good ideas just on this blog. The important thing is to have a go and the first step is to have a goal.
The second is that by simply signing up to a target, we’ll kill ourselves to meet it, when the real problem is that we’ll ignore it. Setting a target only gets us to the next, harder question of how to meet it. The current govt has taken many good options off the table. How likely is it that National would then turn around a kill ag exports? Sounds silly doesn’t it. Even Labour were so shit scared that they would barely go near ag.
So no govt is going to let its economy tank to meet the target. It just won’t happen. The issue is that we won’t do what we can out of fear of doing anything.
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You used to accuse us of being the pessimists BP. But clearly you are in need of some professional help. If you are buying into Nick Smith’s mantra that setting a reasonable target, (one that the science, not the ideologues says we need,) is going to break our economy and require the death of agriculture, you haven’t been reading the science.
Our agriculture will flourish, for centuries, if we get the emissions imbalances sorted out. And no matter how many times you repeat it, we are, each one of us, responsible for our own emissions, and repeating over and over that we don’t matter as individuals goes against everything you believe.
You can stop deluding yourself that this is what you believe, because I know it isn’t. You believe in individual responsibility, not individual abdication. So why preach it like a troll at frogblog? Why not just f-off and give us all some peace?
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Is this blog funded by the taxpayer?
>>Its all just so predetermined for BP
Well, it is possible we might replace our export earnings with something else without the slightest bump, but if we were capable of that, we would surely have done so by now.
You mean to say we’re all just sitting around leaving money on the table waiting for farming to go belly-up *before* we implement “Lucrative Plan B”?
>>is going to break our economy and require the death of agriculture
Kinda depends if producers in other countries are lumbered with the same cost structures. The risk is, of course, that their countries can achieve 40% by closing something down that *isn’t* vital to their main export revenue generator.
I wouldn’t trust our politicians with a loaf of bread, let alone that sort of calculation.
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Peace Peter and Peace Nik.
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I wouldn’t trust our politicians with a loaf of bread
Doh!
“F” stood for “Folic” then Frog?
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Frog notes: “Our agriculture will flourish, for centuries, if we get the emissions imbalances sorted out.”
Which is exactly the problem. By continuing to focus on maintaining agriculture we’ll continue to lower our living standards. We need to break that love affair with agriculture so we can start to climb the OECD ladder, with higher value businesses than agriculture, and now is the time to do it.
And who knows, having to comply with an emissions reduction standard might be the tool necessary to kickstart the process. But what will probably happen is:
1) Agriculture will continue to flourish and not sort its “emissions imbalances” out, or
2) Agriculture will be brought into line and be an even lower value business
Either way there is no gain to NZ, although some may see possibility two as a win.
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Sorry DBuckley — would you prefer me to simply say “more productive” ?
My point, which you ENTIRELY missed, was that the problem is NOT eliminating some farmer’s pretty-average livelihoods in favor of more productive ones, but providing for more productive livelihoods to be encouraged in this country. There are in truth, only two of these “pretty average” sectors that I am aware of, and one of them is property investment. The OTHER is killing animals and exporting the remains.
If there is a third major area in which we invest… it might be tourism… so maybe that counts. I don’t know how big it really is, but I know darned well it is not productive or challenging.
Which is why people with intelligence and drive run rather than walking, to the nearest airport as soon as they can.
None of which makes a lick of difference to paying the cost of putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
respectfully
BJ
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dbuckley – if I am reading you right? You’re suggesting we stop wallowing in the churned-up paddock with the cow and look to better industries (for example the lactopharmacutical industry as proposed by Rod Oram) and that if we stick with fully stocked farms as our driver of fortune, as Nick Smith seems to be desperate to do, we will stay in the mud? If so, I’m with you!
Peter demands that any change be made ‘without the slightest bump’.
I smell fear.
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People will always need to eat, and New Zealand has a reasonable amount of expertise in farming-related science and technology. Adapting to farming with lower carbon emissions is likely to actually boost that industry, and providing the technology to help people in other countries farm better may well end up being one of New Zealand’s successful industries in the future.
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If there was demand, we’d be doing it already. To the naysayers, you could do it today! Knock together the business case, head down to the bank, and mortgage yourself to the hilt.
It sounds nice. We base our economy on clean, green exports, and we maintain, even increase our standard of living. Great!
However, talking business realities to those from the ideological left, or those who have never run businesses, is like talking dutch to the Russians. The risk (risk means “costs a lot”) of untested markets, especially long distance markets, is not to be taken lightly.
Do you think there might be a very rational reason for our BMW-n-batch mentality?
Let’s see if you can guess what it is….
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Neville Bennet is discussing Herman Daly at interest.co.nz
Warning: the total package of 10 ideas below consciously limits growth. It comes from Herman Daly’s keynote address to the US Society for Ecological Economics.
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/07/13/opinion-10-st eady-state-solutions-for-a-successful-economy/#more-3884
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“If there was demand, we’d be doing it already.”
Never was the free marketer’s ideology so well summarised, and so patently untrue! Prove to me that that statement is right, and I’ll bother reading the rest of your drivel.
The case against that statement is so overwhelming, yet we hear it repeated over and over again as if it were the word of god. Talk about your religious zealots!
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There will be a demand to reduce carbon emissions once it costs something to emit carbon.
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Isn’t the moderator supposed to lead by example?
You’ve heard the term “nature abhors a vacuum”? Well, it’s the same with markets.
If there is pent up, lucrative (that qualifier is important) demand, no supplier is going to leave that demand sitting there.
The reason demand might not be met is the high cost of meeting that demand. For example, I might want fresh organic bread delivered each day, but either don’t want to pay the full cost of that, or there is not enough demand from others for this service. The numbers don’t work.
So, for NZ, there are a number of things we could be doing. But the first question is “is there demand for this?” Secondly, “is there enough margin to be had meeting that demand”?
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Setting the right cost for emitting carbon is of course important too.
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BluePeter’s bleat for market adoration reminds me of the goat herds in countries that have driven their environments to the brink of destruction through their poor land practices and end up with their market demanding goat meat and milk. The goats that provide the products this market demand, also destroy all remaining vestiges of flora that in turn protects the soils on which everything depends. Should the goats continue to be grazed? Yes, bleats Pete, the market demands! No, the far-sighted environmentalist says, there is a need here to jump to a new system which will ensure survival well into the future, not just until the last goat-sized nibble has been swallowed.
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>>There will be a demand to reduce carbon emissions once it costs something to emit carbon.
Kinda implies we will be the suppliers to meet that demand? Well, we could be, but that tech could just as easily be developed in other countries where there is:
a) deep venture capital markets
b) LOTs of highly educated people
c) a business friendly environment
Do we have comparative advantage in this area? Maybe we do, but I wouldn’t just assume it, and I wouldn’t just assume the revenue will replace what we stand to lose if we increase costs taht other suppliers don’t face.
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>>BluePeter’s bleat for market adoration
I don’t “adore” markets, I attempt to understand them. A market is simply a collection of signals, made by people. Decoding a market is all about decoding people.
For example, I might think it’s a great idea to build eco-community housing. The people I talk to all think it’s a great idea. But when it comes to the crunch, few people buy them. Turns out that what they say and what they do are two different things. You might notice this with your polling results, buying free range, etc. The market can provide you with this information, but ideology and the company of like-minded people will not.
I acknowledge that markets sometimes benefit from regulation and intervention.
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Perhaps now is the time, Peter, for an agency with a wider view than the market, to make itself heard. The market, I notice, drives the boom in fast foods we are seeing here in NZ at the moment. The health agencies meanwhile, describe the ballooning obesity epidemic.
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Sure, Greenfly. But isn’t that statement just rich with information about people!
Why are they buying fast food? Why are people not looking after themselves? Why are they not taking responsibility for what they eat? Why aren’t they cooking at home? There are so many interesting signals.
They are certainly deriving benefit, else they would spend their money on something else. Health messages clearly aren’t working. Grow your own garden messages clearly aren’t working.
Talking about solutions is where our ideological positions come in, I guess.
I think it has a lot to do with the dumbing down of our education system, a no-fault society, lack of individual responsibility and the socialisation of the costs.
My guess is you’d ban McDonalds
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I don’t know Frog.. maybe if the market were really “free” in that we didn’t subsidize passive investment in property we’d get some small improvement, I think there are a fair few distortions that make it harder to make a case either way in NZ… which has a mostly “free” market that is constrained in no small part by other people’s subsidies and tariffs and by the domination of government by the passive-investment class and bankers.
Overall I reckon that there are points either way. NZ is a damned hard place to run exports from. The cost structures favor people closer to their markets and the difficulty of actually knowing a market of foreigners speaking another language, like say “American” from a distance is enormous. We succeed in niches. To do better however, does not depend on deregulating more and being more wasteful of our planet as BP wishes to argue.
IMHO the government needs to encourage the growth of the technology sector better. The high-wage high-skill jobs don’t just appear magically, they will have to be nurtured, and as any exported technology depends heavily on the skill base, we need to ensure that the skill base does not erode further. How do manage this trick without subsidizing industry in some way is a question I would put to BP. Personally I expect that there must be some sort of subsidies in the system. I don’t insist on it, I just expect it of any system that might succeed.
respectfully
BJ
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Many of you appear to associate agriculture with commodity farming.
Agriculture includes growin high value funghi such as truffles which last year fetched US$13,000 a kilo.
Also quality NZ wine can fetch a few hundred dollars a bottle in Europe.
Then there are high quality cheeses etc.
The gourmet market is growing rapidly and gourmet tourism in which local food is combined with local scenery and culture is a major dollar earner.
Then there is agripharmacy. The future for growing pharmaceuticals in living plants and animals is massive and a pharmaceutical protein can be worth thousands of dollars a gram.
So it is not an either/or approach to the future. We have skills and reputations.
I invented the term country cache for the extra value a product can acquire because of a tradition base. Country Cache is why it is hard to sell New Zealand watches to the Swiss and equally difficult for the Swiss to sell Rugby jersies to New Zealanders.
So build on our strengths but be prepared to break new ground.
We developed all the technologies for implanting silicon chips on wafers here in NZ, but they could not survive here because nobody thought we could do it.
So the ANAC team have been in the US for years now designing all the leading edge ion implanters for the world. The local spin-off was the factory in Mt Albert which makes the magnets for the optical lenses which the ANAC team design in San Jose. Just about every chip you use has been made in a machine with local magnets focussing the ion beams. But when I was in DFC I was funding the ion beam technology as the same time as I was funding the cancer labs at Auckland and the diabetes Diagnostic chemistry of Dr Baker and the extreme thermophiles at Waikato. I also worked with Dr Baker at Massey on his zero till technology. So centres of excellence can be built around an individual – even more so today with high speed broadband available. We can telecommute to anywhere in the world.
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Sorry. Things move on.
Buckley Systems ltd is now located at Mt Wellington.
Tomorrow I shall find ion beam systems site where you can look at the magnets they make which could well be placed in a gallery as a work of art.
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BJ, you’re agreeing with me in the second paragraph. I think a lot of people in New Zealand don’t understand that point, because they have no direct experience of it.
Creating new export markets from this distance has a high risk of failure. I get the feeling that many Greens think export replacement will just magically happen. If we built it, they will come.
I’m arguing that if it was that easy, we’d already be doing it.
>>being more wasteful of our planet as BP wishes to argue
I’m not arguing for more waste. I’m making the point that New Zealand stands to get royally scre*wed if we go in there grandstanding on arbitrary numbers like 40%. The effect on world temperature, either way, is barely measurable.
Given the last targets included agriculture, when there was no push to do so, I don’t trust these politicians as far as I can throw them. I’d prefer they er on the side of caution, which Smith appears to be doing.
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Peter said:
My guess is you’d ban McDonalds
In the blink of an eye!
No, of course not Peter (thought you’d enjoy a knee-jerk response though)
I love McDonalds for the example they provide of the market speaking and falling short. The good folk who choose to eat there are those who should shape our health system and it’s efficacy? I think not.
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Peter said:
I get the feeling that many Greens think export replacement will just magically happen. If we built it, they will come.
Don’t trust your feelings on this one Peter. Look to the facts. You are wrong.
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>>thought you’d enjoy a knee-jerk response though
Heh heh.
>>I love McDonalds for the example they provide of the market speaking and falling short.
It’s people speaking. Markets don’t speak. Markets are teh collective voices of many individuals all speaking at once.
And they’re saying they want McDonalds.
Why?
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Peter said:
I’d prefer they er on the side of caution, which Smith appears to be doing.
To err is human, we must forgive both you and Smith, at the same time remembering that:
To err is human, to arr is pirate
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Thought you might enjoy this one, Greenfly:
http://imgur.com/7dGuq.jpg
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Why?
100 reasons, all short-sighted.
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Why do people tend to be short-sighted?
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Thought you might enjoy this one
I did, though I’ve more faith in human nature (I have one).
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So BP, you oppose the subsidisation of certain markets by their ability to emit without constraint and not having to face the full economic cost of their activities. in order to allow a free-er market?
I would have a much more sympathetic view of your statements, hell, I might even agree with them if I didn’t know that the market is heavily skewed, heavily subsidised in unsustainable directions. sometimes this is by political manipulation, sometimes ignorance as in the case of the atmosphere. Problem is, the science tells us that the free use of the atmosphere is an economic distortion. How would you fix that BP?
As for NZ being a business friendly place – it ranks in the top 5 in the world for low compliance costs and ease of doing business. Don’t throw that red-herring into the debate. We’ve got it easy here from that standpoint. We do, I must agree, struggle with our geographic isolation. We also have a love of tearing down tall poppies.
I wish Owen hadn’t mentioned the magnet maker. Now someone will try and tear them down….
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The electro magnets made in Mt Wellington can be viewed here at the Ion beam Systems Home page from Santa Clara:
http://www.ionbeams.com/Pictures.htm
One of the things that drove the team off-shore was import licensing.
They needed special stainless steel and were told to use the local product.
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Why do people tend to be short-sighted?
They’re eating poor food. It dampens their ability to see clearly.
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>>As for NZ being a business friendly place – it ranks in the top 5 in the world for low compliance costs and ease of doing business.
It’s easy to START business here. Maintaining and growing business here is difficult because you hit two problems: small local market and distance to export markets (not just geographic, think cultural/connections/networks).
>>How would you fix that BP?
I have no idea. I just know that carbon trading isn’t it.
>>We also have a love of tearing down tall poppies.
We do. But then comments about “fat cats” etc by the left (Helen, mostly) don’t exactly help.
We need to be more pro-business.
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>>They’re eating poor food. It dampens their ability to see clearly.
Seriously, though.
People do tend to be short sighted, even when it might kill them. That is an observable truth.
So why?
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Self-interest. It’s an impediment.
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Sugar tax! Here we go!
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3rd highest level of obesity in the OECD! National pride swelling in our hearts!
Bursting with pride!
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Bring back the days when we could all smoke ourselves thin..?
Some of the older blokes at work talk fondly about the days when they could chain smoke at their typewriters all day while typing up reports… They may have emphysema but damn are they skinny..!
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How many of these are close to Green party policy? [comments are Neville Bennetts]
1. Cap-auction-trade for basic resources. As I understand it, the state would auction quotas of resources. This captures huge rents for the state. Quotas are tradable, which leads to efficient use. The cap limits the depletion and pollution that can be imposed on the ecosystem. A higher price for resources will encourage more economical use. The same system could apply to forestry and does to NZ fishery. The revenue would reduce income tax.
2. Ecological tax reform. Shift the tax base from value added by labour and capital, to “that to which value is added”, the entropic throughput of resources extracted from nature (depletion) and returned to nature (pollution). I favour this as it places the producer with the costs of externalities, as well as raising revenue more equitably. It puts prices on the previously unpriced contribution of nature.
In principle, we need to lower tax on value-added contributions. We need to tax depletion and pollution.
3. Limit the range of inequality in income distribution. Complete inequality is unfair. Complete equality is also unfair. The church, military, university and civil service have a range of incomes of a factor of 15 or 20. A gardener in a NZ university might earn one-tenth of a vice-chancellor’s salary. Corporate America has a range of 500 or more. Why not try a lower limit and see if it works?
4. Free up the length of the working day/week. The work contract could be freed up. In an ideal world there would be less advertizing too to create the urge to work in order to accumulate. One proposal is to cease allowing advertising to be a tax-deductable expense for business.
5. Re-regulate international commerce. Move away from free trade, free mobility of capital and globalization. Impose tariffs to protect, not inefficient firms, but efficient national policies of cost internalization. It is hard to integrate high wages, high environment standards and social-safety nets with an open world.
I struggle with this idea, but readers should be advised that it is likely to be adopted by the Obama regime, starting with charges on non- Kyoto exporters.
6. Downgrade IMF-WTO-WB, towards the original Breton Woods vision of multilateral clearing union, charging penalties on surpluses as well as deficits, with a world reserve currency (the bancor) not the US dollar. In Herman Daly’s view, the IMF serves the interests of the multinationals who want full capital mobility and convertibility to escape regulation. As there is no global government they are uncontrolled.
7. Move to 100% reserve requirement in banking. Banks would no longer be able to create money out of nothing. They could receive extra non-interest bearing fiat money from the Government. If prices rise, the government would print less and tax more. Exchange rates would float.
I scratch my head on this one as I believe society would crash with insufficient credit.
8. Stop treating the scarce as though it were non-scarce, but also stop treating the non-scarce as if it were scarce. This apparently means price commons of natural capital (like parks, the atmosphere, electromagnetic spectrum etc) and brings it under cap-auction-trade. Also loosen from private hands knowledge and information in order to share knowledge. Keeping knowledge artificially scarce is expensive and perverse. Patents should be for fewer years.
9. Stabilize Population. Work towards a balance where births and in-migrants equal deaths and out-migrants. Make contraception available. Have a public debate on the numbers of migrants to be accepted and be firm on violations. This is in accord with NBR’s brilliant editorial on Friday, July 3.
10. Reform National Accounts. This is interesting-separate GDP into a cost account and a benefits account. Compare them at the margin, stop throughput growth when marginal costs equal marginal benefits.
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2009/07/13/opinion-10-st eady-state-solutions-for-a-successful-economy/#comments
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>>Self-interest. It’s an impediment.
But it’s not in their long term interest.
A lot of marketing messages are based on the short term. McDonalds messages are all short term. Given that many people think short term (observable market signal), do you think the Greens might have something to learn from McDonalds when it comes to getting the message across?
Vote For Me…..
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Peter – you are flogging your opinion about the Greens election strategy relentlessly and ad nauseum and at the same time criticising almost everything they/we say. You pretend you would like us to do better at the election but demean our philosophies. Are you just being an *rse?
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I guess.
Interesting topics of debate round here….
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Well I had a very nice coffee from McDonalds today, and the family gets it about once a fortnight. I think Mc D’s offer a great service to families in NZ, I can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
Oh thats right, “its the corporations maaaaan, they’re evil maaaan”
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“You pretend you would like us to do better at the election but demean our philosophies.”
You know what, we do need the Green party, someone needs to keep those dirty farmers and the coal miners honest.
But just like salt, we only need a little of it to achieve the goal, too much and you start to vomit uncontrollably and get desperately ill
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BP
You know I take points where I find them. I don’t reckon you are entirely wrong about everything.
However, the CO2 business is largely irrelevant if everyone has to meet the same standard. It pushes down on all and sundry. For us to push down on agriculture is hard, as noted, but for us to pick up something in renewables and offsetting forestry is not so tough IF we work the system.
This is almost entirely separate from the issue of whether we can build any sort of export industries.
respectfully
BJ
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Shunda – you use this quote to characterize greens
“its the corporations maaaaan, they’re evil maaaan”
Can you link me to where you have seen this expression/idiom used on Frogblog, or are you, like BluePeter, being an *rse?
Tell me Shunda – do you believe that McDonalds is not contributing to New Zealand’s obesity problem? (We are no.3 in the world now).
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“Can you link me to where you have seen this expression/idiom used on Frogblog, ”
No, but I hear it from many of the more ignorant green supporters all the time.
“Tell me Shunda – do you believe that McDonalds is not contributing to New Zealand’s obesity problem?”
No they are not, its people that cause people to get fat, where the hell is individual responsibility in all this?
Any way, McD’s is far better for you than fish n chips, I’d love to see the greens commit political suicide over banning that little Kiwi tradition.
You can’t stop stupid people doing stupid things greenfly, there is a lot worse things they could be doing than eating a big mac.
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>>We are no.3 in the world now
Because we have a lot of lazy people with no sense of personal or social responsibility. They are told they are victims, so that’s the way they think of themselves.
That’s false. They’re fat because they refuse to face the truth.
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Shunda and Peter – to quote one of you (though you speak with one voice)
Because we have a lot of lazy people with no sense of personal or social responsibility
Granted. We do. Surely those with a sense of personal and social responsibility should do something about that, especially if the actions of ‘that crowd’ damage the society that we all live in.
You can’t stop stupid people doing stupid things
Can’t you Shunda? Let’s give everyone, regardless of their levels of stupidity, easy access to guns shall we?
Peter – They’re fat because they refuse to face the truth
The fat children of fat parents are fat
“because they refuse to face the truth”
Really?
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- “maybe if the market were really “free” in that we didn’t subsidize passive investment in property we’d get some small improvement”
Agreed.
An end to all state housing.
- “do you believe that McDonalds is not contributing to New Zealand’s obesity problem?”
Don’t forget all the Chinese food outlets. And all those coffee/cake shops. And the supermarkets who sell cheap food (damn them!) And those employers who offer comfortable jobs sitting down in an office all day rather than hard physical labour.
Really, the list of people to blame is endless.
Except the fatties themselves, that is. It can’t be their fault.
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Yes. With the (rare) exception of medical causes, there is only one way to get fat: eating more calories than you burn off.
You don’t see many fat people in Tokyo. They eat very small portion sizes (left me feeling kinda hungry, and I’m thin) and people tend to walk everywhere.
Was at a pacific island health conference (I kid you not) years ago, and I watched in amazement what was being eaten. Huge volumes of meat floating in fat. Nobody touched the healthy options.
We make endless excuses, and avoid telling people the truth. People are fat because they eat too much and walk too little. Everything else is white noise.
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“Granted. We do. Surely those with a sense of personal and social responsibility should do something about that,”
Only to a limited degree, we have already seen what meddling in the lives of good parents has done, do you really want the fat people after you too?
I accept that we need to provide people with the information to eat healthy, to help them make wise choices, but the green approach seems to be to ban all the foods that are “of the devil”. You can’t make people eat what you want them to eat, you need to drop the “we know best” attitude and concentrate on those that will listen.
Why are the greens opposed to a gentle transition on everything?
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>>Surely those with a sense of personal and social responsibility should do something about that
Our no-fault health system has a lot to answer for. Clearly, obese people have too much surplus cash for food, so they should be spending it on their increased health risk instead.
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“Our no-fault health system has a lot to answer for. Clearly, obese people have too much surplus cash for food, so they should be spending it on their increased health risk instead.”
Exactly, they get diagnosed with some personality disorder, told its not their fault, its their parents (or post colonial syndrome), get given anti depressant’s and sent on there way with their head held high.
And if anyone DARE’S to so much as disagree with them, out come’s “i’ve got a medical condition, so deal with it”
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There was some daft woman on TV this evening making all sorts of excuses about how it’s not the fault of the pie eaters, and that the answer is (yet again) more collective punishment for all of us in the form of more taxes and more state censorship restricting what we’re allowed to read and watch.
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Ahhhh..I see Peter! The solution (your solution) is to
tell people the truth!
People are fat because they eat too much and walk too little
Problem solved!
Brilliant.
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>>some daft woman on TV
Indeed. State funded excuse makers.
Why we need to hire sociology graduates to argue against the laws of physics is beyond me….
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>>Problem solved!
If that truth flowed through government policy, it would be.
Unfortunately, they often employ liars to perpetuate lies about it not being the pie eaters fault, and devise policies based on those lies.
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People will eat too much and get obese…sooooo… lets litter their environment with copious quantities of cheap food. Remember, it’s their fault if they eat it (which they will and do), then as taxpayers, let’s pay for their lack of self control when their health collopses..BRILLIANT!
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If, Peter, if ??? Think it will do you ?? If not, your idea fails. Got a better suggestion?? Let’s hear it!
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By any measure, I’m wealthy. I can fly to wherever I like, eat whatever I like, whenever I like.
Here’s what I ate today:
1 Tamarillo
1 Apple
1 Yogurt
Bowl of soup and two bread rolls
Spaghetti with home made tomato sauce
Cost: SFA, probably less than a McDonalds meal.
Went for my morning walk.
What do we always hear? Nonsense that poor people can only eat cr*p fast food. That’s just lazy.
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Greenfly, what is your solution?
The only way to stop people getting fat appears to be forming some sort of politically correct food paste eaten from a toothpaste tube. Are you going to rid the country of all meat, cooking oil, sugar and salt from the open market?. Or does each family get a state observer when grocery shopping?
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>>got a better suggestion??
Why have a dog and bark yourself? We pay trhe health department and minister a lot of money to solve these problems. SO they should do their jobs.
If it were me, I’d add a surcharge to their health taxation levels to reflect their increased risk.
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Peter’s recipe for solving obesity in New Zealanders:
Tell them just how lazy and stupid they are.
Good Lord! Why didn’t any one think of that before???
(Because we’re stupid!)
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New solution from BluePeter!
Tax the fatties!
Shunda will love that.
I know I do.
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greenfly,
“People will eat too much and get obese…sooooo… lets litter their environment with copious quantities of cheap food. Remember, it’s their fault if they eat it (which they will and do)”
Let me ask you a question: Do you believe that I am too stupid, to ignorant and too weak-willed to make decisions for myself regarding what I eat and how much exercise I do?
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But don’t the Greens want to tell them they’re stupid by removing choice? In other words, they are too stupid too choose.
What I’m saying is acknowledge the truth: people get fat if they consume more calories than they take in. Once the truth is acknowledged, that should flow through policy.
If you’re obese, it is your own fault, and you face the consequences of those choices, just like if you choose wrestle alligators and stingrays too much. If you engage in dangerous activities, you’ll likely die.
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For many people getting fatter is also a matter of stress, lack of sleep also contributes. “Comfort food” is a phrase we had back in the states, and it was never anything good for you….and the metabolism takes a dive sometime in your thirties and never does come back from that.
Just saying that it isn’t all of a piece. Choices about some of these things (yawn) aren’t so common.
respectfully
BJ
(who WOULD ban Asparagus and Brussels Sprouts – “think of the children” )
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And for just as many stress induces less eating
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“and the metabolism takes a dive sometime in your thirties and never does come back from that. ”
Tell me about it!!! I used to eat everything with no effect, I turn 30 and blammo! pot belly starts to emerge.
I have started to eat more healthy though.
To be fair to greenfly, I think we do need to do more to reduce obesity, I just don’t think banning certain foods or food outlets is the way to do it.
I don’t think having McDonalds or Burger King once a week is going to do me or my family any harm and I would like the choice to remain as it is.
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““Comfort food” is a phrase we had back in the states, and it was never anything good for you”
When I was in the States last September I was amazed at all the crap they sell in service stations etc. Heaps of nasty processed rubbish, I was hungry but still didn’t buy anything.
In fact everything is so over processed over there, and their butter is white!!!!
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Wat,
I will answer your question: “Let me ask you a question: Do you believe that I am too stupid, to ignorant and too weak-willed to make decisions for myself regarding what I eat and how much exercise I do?”
I think you are neither stupid nor ignorant about what you eat and how much exercise yo do. On the last point I do not know the answer. Many, many people are too weak-willed to eat the right types and amount of food, even though they know what is good for them. I don’t know if you fall into this category or not.
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Guys – We are genetically programmed to put everything we can get that has calories in it, into our guts. This has to do with evolution and the VERY recent situation (in evolutionary terms) in which we were pretty much always in danger of imminent starvation.
Then we got agriculture and fire and technology and a lot of food, but we are still programmed to take the slice too many of pizza, and that’s all there is to it. Quite natural. I find that if I am ON MY OWN I eat less and exercise more.
Getting married added 4 kilos in less than a year.
Having a child added another 3.
BJ
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Peter
Your menu for yesterday certainly looked healthy and showed that you have a responsible approach to your health, including your weight. Walking is the king of exercises and you include that as well – most admirable. Everyone can do what you do, right? But, they don’t. You suggest ‘we’ tax them for their failure to ‘do the right thing’. But the playing field here is not level. A child brought up in a family that regularly eats poor food has a considerably more difficult time even realising that there are other ways to manage its health. Habitual behaviour is difficult to change. The attraction of toys, colourful and collectable adds to the problem where fast food outlets are involved. the advertising that draws young people to such outlets adds to the difficulty – it’s the place where fun is had, where famous people have been seen to go, where excitement is. Playgrounds provided on-site attract families who can eat and entertain their children easily and cheaply. The peers of the ‘rapidly swelling’ numbers provide extra incentive to visit and eat at these establishments – if you don’t frequent the outlets, you are regarded as and treated as odd. These are just a few pressures that young people and their parents face. No doubt you are immune to such enticements, but many, many New Zealanders are not. The fact that you have resisted makes you feel that ‘all that is required is for people to say ‘No’.
I am amused by the suggestion that perhaps education is the way foward for these fattening folk. Programmes at school, do you think? Who might fund those? The Government? Something along the lines of Enviroschools perhaps, that set out to involve children in becoming the decision makers around the management of their environment, including the choosing, growing and eating of healthy food? Hmm…
If you don’t mind my saying so, it seems that you believe that if you can do something, everyone else ought simply to do it too. Nice idea, a little naive perhaps.
You said earlier that you believe there is a place for regulation. I suspect you support the regulations around a similar health issue – smoking tobacco. I suggest there is a need to regulate around the issue of obesity.
While you will probably shriek, ‘ban’, remember that it was you who cited ‘regulate’. I would regulate around the quality of foods that are provided for children at our schools and the amount of exercise they partake of, for a start.
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bj
Saturn found a solution to that problem! Mind you, he’d have experienced a temporary gain…
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wat asked:
Do you believe that I am too stupid, to ignorant and too weak-willed to make decisions for myself regarding what I eat and how much exercise I do?
It’s difficult for me to tell wat, but others here in this discussion believe that the general population is stupid (and lazy) so if you are a typical New Zealander, then the chances are that, in the eyes of BluePeter and Shunda, Sapient too I guess, you are indeed too stupid.
I am not one of those who sees most others as ’stupid’ or ‘lazy’, curiously enough. I see unequal forces at work, influences on ordinary people that are greater than those folk (we folk) can manage. Advertising is one, corporate machinations is another. Political actions, such as providing venues such as schools for fast food producers to hawk their wares is yet another.
I’ve a question for you wat!
Would you give MacDonalds the go ahead to establish ‘little golden arches’ in all of our primary schools, believing as you do, that people should be able to choose for themselves? Children can’t choose to eat or not eat MacDonalds if there are no arches on site.
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>>Everyone can do what you do, right? But, they don’t.
All it takes is the decision to do so. I do think everyone is capable of making the same decision, but they choose not to.
>>You suggest ‘we’ tax them for their failure to ‘do the right thing’. But the playing field here is not level.
I agree, but then life isn’t fair. If more people faced the consequences of their choices, then, in time, patterns would change. That’s how humans and animals have always learned.
>>Habitual behaviour is difficult to change.
Agreed.
>>The attraction of toys, colourful and collectable adds to the problem where fast food outlets are involved. the advertising that draws young people to such outlets adds to the difficulty – it’s the place where fun is had, where famous people have been seen to go, where excitement is. Playgrounds provided on-site attract families who can eat and entertain their children easily and cheaply.
It only works because McDonalds is addressing a real need. Yes, it’s convenient to have a safe place for your kids to play while you grab some lunch. I see nothing wrong with any of that, but like drinking too much water, you can do it to much, and it will kill you.
>>No doubt you are immune to such enticements, but many, many New Zealanders are not. The fact that you have resisted makes you feel that ‘all that is required is for people to say ‘No’.
And for them to face the consequences of their decisions. The harsh reality is that many will die earlier than necessary. Fast food Darwinism, of sorts. Eventually, the problem solves itself as the behaviour most likely to lead to survival triumphs.
Harsh to put it that way, I know, but there is no escaping the truth of nature.
>>I am amused by the suggestion that perhaps education is the way foward for these fattening folk. Programmes at school, do you think? Who might fund those? The Government? Something along the lines of Enviroschools perhaps, that set out to involve children in becoming the decision makers around the management of their environment, including the choosing, growing and eating of healthy food? Hmm…
I take your point. If the link could be made, I have no issue with it. For me, pragmatism trumps ideology.
>>If you don’t mind my saying so, it seems that you believe that if you can do something, everyone else ought simply to do it too. Nice idea, a little naive perhaps.
I’m not that bright. I’m pretty lazy. Yes, if I can do it, most people could do it.
>>You said earlier that you believe there is a place for regulation. I suspect you support the regulations around a similar health issue – smoking tobacco. I suggest there is a need to regulate around the issue of obesity.
As far as tobacco is concerned, it has no other good. You don’t need it, like food. It is entertainment. Entertainment that has economic consequences. Therefore, it should be taxed highly – or preferably, the individual who smokes should be taxed more highly (subtle difference there )
>>Would you give MacDonalds the go ahead to establish ‘little golden arches’ in all of our primary schools, believing as you do, that people should be able to choose for themselves? Children can’t choose to eat or not eat MacDonalds if there are no arches on site.
No, for the same reason I wouldn’t give children the right to choose whether to go to school or not. They’re to young to weigh choices.
I have no problem putting a McDonalds in an adult workplace. In fact, we have food courts with McDonalds in office buildings now.
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Peter
I enjoyed your response, thank you. bear with me while I ‘grill’ you (to borrow foody phrase) over some of the points you raise.
You say:
I wouldn’t give children the right to choose whether to go to school or not. They’re to young to weigh choices.
So, you support the Greens move to restrict the choices put in front of children in the tuckshops, as ‘they are too young to weigh choices’. If there are health-poor foods on sale there, they will be consumed?
You say (on choosing to eat and exercise well):
I’m not that bright. I’m pretty lazy. Yes, if I can do it, most people could do it.
You’ll be puzzling then as to why the bulk of the population hasn’t made the same choice you have. Any suggestions at to why not?
You said:
As far as tobacco is concerned, it has no other good. You don’t need it, like food.
I’m talking about poor food here. The argument’
As far as poor food is concerned, it has no other good. You don’t need it, like good food.
must apply. I’m talking about action taken around poor food.
You said (of people who are obese):
And for them to face the consequences of their decisions. The harsh reality is that many will die earlier than necessary.
Yet there is a significant cost to you and I, as tax payers. Their ‘failure’ to master the situation will be paid for by us. DFo you not see a need for us to act to protect our own interests (tax moneys). Are you happy to leave the issue in the pudgy hands of people who have shown by their actions that they will not act in a way that will avoid the consequences?
Lokking foward to your responses.
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>>So, you support the Greens move to restrict the choices put in front of children in the tuckshops, as ‘they are too young to weigh choices’. If there are health-poor foods on sale there, they will be consumed?
It’s up to the parents and the school.
I’m very edgy about giving politicians (central control) over individual communities. I know what you’re saying, and have some sympathy with this view, but I think your example is an outlier. I don’t see a KFC and McDonalds popping up in schools. What I do see is an attempt to create an outlier on the other side – more unnecessary state restriction.
>>DFo you not see a need for us to act to protect our own interests (tax moneys).
Yes, but it is *how* we act I’m undecided about.
How about this – health tax rebates for healthy living? Full health taxation for unhealthy living.
I get a little bitter when I see people who make the right decisions getting punished (higher taxes), and the poor decisions get rewarded (constate bailouts).
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Cactus Kate:
http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2009/07/brobesity.html
Heh heh.
So why not target health levies, not on race, but on diagnostic criteria?
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Health tax rebates for healthy living! Where do I go to collect those? That’d be a windfall for me. Hard to quantify I suppose, but I support your proposal 100%.
The ‘it’s up to the parents and the school’ argument interests me, as a fan of localisation, but I’ve concerns about the decision making when it comes to the general population and food, as evidenced by the obesity epidemic. Common sense doesn’t seem to be winning out there, does it.
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>>but I’ve concerns about the decision making when it comes to the general population and food
True, but is there a utopia? I have faith in parents and school boards to not put McDonalds in schools. Do some school make the wrong decisions on what they serve? Quite probably. But I’m in favour of targeting those in “need” (in this case, a need to not act foolishly), rather than punishing everyone.
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Greenfly,
It is my opinion that all things should have their externalities accounted for. This includes food. The consumption of certain types of food can lead to serious medical problems, esspecially when consumed in excess. We should give ‘free’ treatment for diseases resulting from consumption or food or drugs as, as france shows, it means much more bang for your buck if you just go all umbrella on health. I say ‘free’ because this externality should be built into the cost of the product. We need to work out the health cost of over consumption and the contributions of different food consituents and then tax those consituents accordingly at the level of the producer. This way saturated foods will be more expensive than unsaturated, fatty than unfatty, high msg/processed than low msg/processed, etc, etc, etc. It would remove the effective subsidy received because of public health care and would help in rectifying this situation. Thought ther are also many other factors that need to be countered.
I dont think it is so much people being stupid, though I would say that probally is be a factor when people fail to assess the long term impacts of such assumption. I think it is more to do with a lack of exercise, a lack of cooking skills, readily availible cheap, addictive, and tasty foods, and most significantly a lack of drive and effort. Bp is right that a benefit culture is largely to blame in that it encourages the aforemetnioned attitudes and skill deficits.
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Greenfly,
Well I think that growing and preparing tasty food at school will be the most effective mechanisms for creating behavioural change and decreasing obeasity. In this respect, if I remmember correctly, you are well on the right path.
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Bluepeter said:
“How about this – health tax rebates for healthy living? Full health taxation for unhealthy living.”
that’s a good idea. For food, the easiest way to do it would be to attach the tax to the food is commonly eaten in unhealthily large amounts. For example, we could put a tax on fish and chips, because eating them every day is bad for you, and people do feel the temptation to eat them that often. Bananas are also bad for you if you eat too many of them, but people don’t generally feel the urge to eat so many bananas as to get potassium overload, so we wouldn’t bother taxing them. And depending on what other tax changes we make, people who eat fish and chips once a week needn’t end up paying any more tax than they do now.
Hopefully the tax would guarantee that junk food was still available for people who wanted it, but not cheap enough for people to choose it on price.
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DPF puts it well:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/07/the_intolerance_of_the_doomsayers.ht ml
And shame on the chairman and scientist. The arrogance of some 40 per centers is unbelievable, and I suspect the only thing they will achieve is to convince the Minister they are unbalanced fundamentalists.
These conclusions show why we won’t be setting high targets:
“Again, I support reducing our emissions – both for reasons of trade, but also to contribute to reducing global emissions. But the 40% target by 2020 is simply not achievable without a huge reduction in output – or in other words a massive reduction in income levels and employment.”
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Hmmm…sorry, that should have gone to the other thread.
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Hang on, no, I was right – it’s just this thread has got waaaaay off topic
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really pete..!
i thought george monbiot ‘put it’ better..
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/the-rich-can-relax-we-just-need-the-poor-world -to-cut-emissions-by-125/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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>>For food, the easiest way to do it would be to attach the tax to the food
Maybe, but don’t you think that would turn into an administrative nightmare? All unfair on the moderates.
How about a 100% health tax. You can reduce that 100% tax obligation by visiting a doctor and passing a physical and/or opting out of state funding for specified health conditions.
The pro-active would pay less. The sloths would be self-funding. We’d also need to put conditions around welfare (long term unemployed are managed with vouchers)
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also not all
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BluePeter – your promotion of Farrar’s rant is hilarious (as is his rant!)
Let’s look at a couple of things he says:
..blah, blah, need to totally eliminate agricultural emissions (which can only be achieved by shooting every cow in NZ ..
That’s a balanced comment
He does mention that:
Most people in the packed meeting room at the Hyatt Regency hotel had turned up to say they supported Greenpeace’s target of cutting emissions 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Fair enough. They did. Democracy in action. Farrar doesn’t seem to thrill to the democratic voice at all!
What did he title his post the…?
Oh yes! The Intolerance of the Doomsayers! Daft Penguin!
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Just in case the reality of the situation hasn’t quite gotten through….
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/japans-robots-join- ranks-of-unemployed.html
It actually does not matter where you are, the reality of too many people having nothing useful to do is real. I have posted on this issue before, because to me it is a very real problem. It has several components:
1. Workers are continuously becoming more productive as a result of our being able to harness energy and focus it with intelligence. The computer revolution was expected to put everyone out of work. It is doing so, it just takes longer than people originally thought.
2. In an economy where a tiny fraction of the population can with meager efforts produce everything that everyone needs or wants, WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE DO FOR A LIVING?
3. In that same economy which has become highly advanced technically and the productive jobs can ONLY be performed by people at the top end of the bell-curve with appropriate training, what do you teach the rest of the population to do?
4. What do you pay the folks who still produce?
The whole economic model is broken at this level (as well as at the level of banks and currencies), the overcapacity is not ever going to go away except at the price of efficiency with respect to manpower utilization, and we are already inefficient.
I know, I usually give answers, but not this time. This is one of MY questions. Caution is advised
respectfully
BJ
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Greenfly, the 40% ers haven’t demonstrated how, exactly, we will achieve 40%.
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BluePeter Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:37 am
> How about a 100% health tax. You can reduce that 100% tax obligation by visiting a doctor and passing a physical and/or opting out of state funding for specified health conditions.
Oh, so what you’re talking about is taxing people on how good their health is, rather than on how healthy a lifestyle they are living. That would slightly improve the healthiness of lifestyles, but it would bankrupt everyone with a serious medical condition that wasn’t their fault.
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No, the condition would need to be clearly self-inflicted – obesity being one.
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>>WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE DO FOR A LIVING?
They work in the service economy. The need for services is infinite.
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BJ,
I have been playign with this exact problem for a long time now to no avail. Solutions on the microscale are not that hard, but on the macroscale they are just not plausable.
We could increase inefficency through the introduction of tariffs or things with the same effect (carbon accountancy will do this somewhat) which would create more jobs. We could decrease the population to the productive level but then when it is reduced that much the population needed to support them will be even smaller, of course the number needed to support the population will decrease slower than the population so this could work in the long term but its effects may be rather undesirable, particuarly from the viewpoint of scientific advance.
Apart from that i dont see many approaches which woudl work without a fundimental change in the way humans operate. If we could teach everyone to love knowledge and become academics then the problem could be solved though. Alternativly universites could become super-organisations and hold vast quantities of patents, using the income to support the large academic population due to the decrease in funding likeley to result from a much smaller ‘working’ population.
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Peter said:
the 40% ers haven’t demonstrated how, exactly, we will achieve 40%.
This somehow makes them arrogant???
Have you looked to see what they are saying or are you like Nick Smith who arrogantly dismissed their call, didn’t ask what they had in mind and belittled anyone who offered a suggestion. Smith, perhaps like you (and Farrar – what an arrogant twat that man is!), used scaremongery to cover his lack of willingness to listen to the views of those who did show up. I noted your comments re the people who turned up to the meeting at Wellington and wonder if you’d like to have a go at catagorising the Queenstown audience?
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I don’t know Queenstown very well.
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BP
Everyone selling each other services doesn’t answer the macro problem. Let’s think about how additional value is created? Each person has to make a profit on the services they deliver vs the services and resources they consume to make that delivery happen. The transactions don’t add up unless someone makes a loss or unless someone puts ever increasing amounts of money into the system.
The system inflates and self-destructs because make-work has no actual value.
Sapient may explain it more thoroughly, I don’t do models the way he does, but the problem doesn’t go away.
The lack of a frontier where we can expand into the unknown contributes something to the problem. Yet another reason why I favor work on CATS to all other human technological efforts.
But a frontier only creates a way to expand physically, and allows people to get themselves killed exploring…. it doesn’t actually resolve all the issues.
Sapient: I have probably been thinking about it since before you were born
(geezer that I am). I am no closer to an answer than you are here.
My answer is only that what we are doing now is “broken”. What to do next is far less certain.
respectfully
BJ
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# BluePeter Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
> No, the condition would need to be clearly self-inflicted – obesity being one.
okay, you could do that. Next you would get a call to include conditions that are usually self-inflicted but sometimes not. One example is high blood pressure, which in younger people is usually caused by lifestyle factors. But then you would have to filter out the cases of high blood pressure that are caused by kidney problems.
I’m not convinced that it would be more efficient or fairer than taxing unhealthy foods.
In reply to your earlier point about people eating junk food in moderation, a tagged tax enablkes you to reduce non-tagged taxes, and you should be aable to do it in a way that means the total tax paid by someone who consumes the taxed product in moderation does not go up.
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Sounds reasonable, Kahikatea.
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>>This somehow makes them arrogant???
Calling people “flat earthers” makes them arrogant, especially when we know that the science, while compelling, is not conclusive.
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The report said that the ‘flat earther’ comment was a joke and was delivered in that way. Aren’t you being a little over-sensitive Peter?
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Most of the Queenstown audience was vocally supportive of strong measures around climate change, so to use your earlier words, they were ‘batsh*t insane’. Would you call that particular phrase more or less arrogant than ‘flat earther’?
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You are right, Greenfly. I was out-of-line, and I apologise.
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Accepted (on behalf of batty people everywhere) of course. We move on to the next engagement
In fact, I’m off to prune roadside shrubs. I’ve created a frosty traffic hazard by my overzealousness in re-planting the world.
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Gull oil company just put a press release out supporting 40% by 2020. Here’s some of their release:
OIL COMPANY SUPPORTS GREENPEACE TO CUT NZ emissions BY 2020
Auckland, 14 July 2009 – Gull New Zealand, a leader in biofuel and alternative energy, announced today that it supports Greenpeace’s recommendation that the New Zealand government make a strong commitment in setting its greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020.
Karl Mischewski, Sustainability Champion for Gull Group says we should leave the sums up to the scientists on the exact levels of emissions to be achieved by 2020.
“The environmental, social and economic costs of inaction around Climate Change far outweigh the economic costs some have suggested from making deep and rapid cuts that are necessary. The right thing to do is for all of us to act now, rather than waiting on government, not only for the sake of the planet but for future generations. We simply cannot afford to get this wrong.”
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It’s somewhat unsurprising that a “leader in biofuel and alternative energy” would be calling for surprising cuts.
I’ve yet to see an economic analysis, or any methods, that demonstrate how we’ll achieve these cuts so quickly. Without same, this 40% figure is arbitrary and pointless.
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typo….extra “surprising” in there…
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Kudos to BJC this time with the hardest question.
“It actually does not matter where you are, the reality of too many people having nothing useful to do is real. I have posted on this issue before, because to me it is a very real problem. … The computer revolution was expected to put everyone out of work. It is doing so, it just takes longer than people originally thought. … In an economy where a tiny fraction of the population can with meager efforts produce everything that everyone needs or wants, WHAT DOES EVERYONE ELSE DO FOR A LIVING?”
We’ve heard the story before. In the 1950s, it was robots that would make man redundant. Now its computers. Heck, back in the industrial revolution it was infernal machines. Ok the machines won that round.
The problem is that the BluePeter school of economics (dominant model) can’t support this reality and thus we are constrained to operate within the BluePeter model, however bad that is.
The reality is that we should have unemployment rates over 50% with as few as people as possible “working”. I say “working” because the term loses its meaning when full employment is undesirable. “Supporting” ditto. The goal should become to provide the maximum benefit to all with the least input.
To work out what is necessary one needs to look at first principles at what is required at the country level, and what are the benefits, and one quickly realises one needs to remove the link between work and pay. Follow the line through and you get to a communist perspective.
If one applies the maxim “The goal should become to provide the maximum benefit to all with the least input” to the OECD productivity table, then the more tradable commodity you produce with the least people working the further up the tree you go.
Its crazy, but BJ posed what is the one of the hardest questions of our time. Anyone can turn the carbon tap down given sufficient will, but realising that individualistic capitalism makes most of us work unnecessarily, man thats hard.
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The rubber hits the road for the warming argument.
“Fielding put to the minister three questions. How, since temperatures have been dropping, can CO2 be blamed for them rising? What, if CO2 was the cause of recent warming, was the cause of temperatures rising higher in the past? Why, since the official computer models have been proved wrong, should we rely on them for future projections?
The written answers produced by the minister’s own scientific advisers proved so woolly and full of elementary errors that Fielding’s team have now published a 50-page, fully-referenced “Due Diligence” paper tearing them apart. In light of the inadequacy of the Government’s reply, the Senator has announced that he will be voting against the bill.
The wider significance of this episode is that it is the first time a Western government has allowed itself to be drawn into debating the science behind the global warming scare with expert scientists representing the “counter consensus” – and the “consensus” lost hands down. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/580483 1/Climate-change-The-sun-and-the-oceans-do-not-lie.html
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MacDoctor on the fatties (he’s one himself):
” * The primary determinant of fat kids is not school tuck shops, poverty, ignorance of nutrition or lack of exercise – it is the size (and presumably lifestyle) of the primary role model of the child – the parent of the same gender.
* All nutritional, education and regulatory efforts aimed at children are likely to be a complete waste of time (which explains the poor results Labour had in their decade of anti-obesity campaigning). This is reinforced by the fact that, contrary to the prevailing myths, 8 out of 10 obese adults were NOT overweight children.
* The only effective anti-obesity measure will be to persuade overweight adults to change their lifestyles and lose weight. Note that I say persuade. Banning KFC will not produce slim adults – they will simply find some other comfort food.
* For persuasion to have any chance of success, we need to rid ourselves of the prevailing politically correct mollycoddling of overweight people. Fat is not OK. Fat is a damned nuisance. If you are obese, you are more likely to die of a whole host of diseases including heart disease, diabetes and, of course, swine flu. You are less likely to get an accurate diagnosis because your doctor cannot examine you through the layers of fat and most imaging techniques don’t cope very well with adipose tissue either. And if you are over 120 Kg the smaller air ambulance can’t fly you out, the ED beds will collapse and the hospital has to have expensive special beds for you. And that is just a few medical problems off the top of my head.
“
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…I know, BluePeter, isn’t it shocking that the Government hasn’t released any economic analysis or research into achievening 40% by 2020.
They really should be upfront with Kiwis and instruct their officials, economists and advisors to do the analysis on what the science says is necessary – 40%.
At the moment they’re handing leadership over to Greenpeace.
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I’ve had a look at the report and there is more junk statistics in there than there is junk food in heaven and earth.
Whatever we may be this report presents no evidence to support the headline claim.
For one thing it groups overweight and obese as one class.
And it compares countries using data collected on different dates.
And it uses the BMI as its standard even though the experts all agree it should not be used for this purpose. You can come in with an ‘overweight’ BMI for having too much mustle and not enough fat!
It’s just a collection of junk data to give polies another excuse to hastle us.
Just what is junk food by the way? A hamburger is actually a pretty perfect meal in terms of the ratio of protein, carbohydrate and salad.
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Peter quoted: (but surely didn’t agree)
The primary determinant of fat kids is not school tuck shops, poverty, ignorance of nutrition or lack of exercise – it is the size (and presumably lifestyle) of the primary role model of the child – the parent of the same gender.
Earlier today Peter, you said you thought the parents ought to be the ones who decide what should be served at school canteens. Oops!
You also felt that exercise was a key feature for avoiding obesity (walkies!)
All nutritional, education and regulatory efforts aimed at children are likely to be a complete waste of time
You also thought that educating people would be the way forward.
So you’re putting your money on persuading fat people that their chosen way is wrong! In the same way that we try to persuade smokers that smoking is wrong? Interesting! Not so much ‘give people choice’ but ‘work on people til they make the choice you want them to make’.
Lovin’ it!
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Gareth – the avoidance behaviour exhibited by Nick Smith at the climate consultations (choke!) over that issue of ‘what might 40% mean’ was shameful. Truely Natty, I thought.
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>>Earlier today Peter, you said you thought the parents ought to be the ones who decide what should be served at school canteens
They should. Given there will likely be hundreds of parents, the chances of the fatties calling the shots are limited.
The question looks to be – how do we change the behavior of the parents? Or how do we get them to pay for their bad choices?
>>You also thought that educating people would be the way forward.
The parents. Although I have my doubts about education in this area.
After all, the message is very simple, and has been around for decades. If you eat too much and don’t exercise, you’ll get fat.
I think the problem is we allow people to think that they’re inflicted with it. They’re not. They’re making constant bad choices, day in day out. Fine, but they should face 100% of the costs of doing that.
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>>BluePeter, isn’t it shocking that the Government hasn’t released any economic analysis or research into achievening 40% by 2020.
No, because 40% is an arbitrary figure. May as well say 62%. Or 79%.
It’s pointless demanding 40% without weighing the costs. Lets say we can do 40% IF we also scrap welfare. We can’t incur the cost of both. Would people still be demanding 40%?
And if you say that comparison is ridiculous, then give me a valid comparison on the costs associated with a 40% reduction?
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The obese should face 100% of the costs of doing that (choosing badly)?
The polluters of the environment should face 100% of the costs of doing that?
We are singing from the same song sheet here, tra la la!
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I’m against polluting the environment.
But then the jury is still out on c02. c02 seems to be rather necessary, and as Owen points out – not logarithmic.
Off to Gareth Morgans presentation tonight. Should be rather interesting…
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“the minister’s own scientific advisers” – not an actual climate scientist among them – handpicked from the extraordinarily thick Australian community of such people.
Fielding asked for a specific result by choosing his advisers as he chose. There was never any doubt whatsoever about the outcome. Anyone familiar with the debate knows those names and their broken arguments well enough to have predicted the outcome with about the same reliability one predicts the sunrise.
respectfully
BJ
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Greenpeace release from yesterday on 40%:
A 40 per cent by 2020 emission reduction target for New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions is not a “Greenpeace target”, the organisation said today.
“Climate Change Minister Nick Smith has inaccurately branded the 40% target a “Greenpeace” target, despite the fact that he knows it’s a target put forward by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists and favoured by every individual and organisation that’s read the science of climate change and is taking it seriously,” said Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid. “This includes Oxfam, WWF and 350.org.
“Quite simply, it’s what science tells us we have to do if we’re to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. It is not a figure pulled out of a hat, it is not the figure supported only by environmentalists. It’s the figure that we must achieve if we want to have a chance of maintaining life as we know it.
“It is also what China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa are calling on developed countries to commit to if they are to agree to a global deal in Copenhagen this December. The one will help ensure the other.”
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Good Lord! You unearthed that piece of misinformation in the nick of time!
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IPPC head Rajendra Pachauri:
“We [in the IPCC] have estimated that to stabilize global temperature increases at just 2° to 2.4° Celsius, we have only about seven years to turn around global emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. By 2015 they’ll have to peak. By 2020, we’ll need to put in place a ***25*** to 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.”
40% is only the top end, and neither politically feasible or possible. It’s an activists figure.
“Let me apply this principle in a couple of ways. Some assert that the United States can only meet its responsibility if it agrees to reduce emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, equivalent to at least a 40% reduction below where we are right now (a much deeper cut than the EU would have to make compared to where they are now). But, first, as a matter of substance, this is not necessary. What counts is getting on a viable path between now and 2050. Reducing 25-40% below 1990 levels would be a good idea if it were doable, since it would allow a less steep reduction path in the 2020-2050 time period. But it is not independently necessary; a somewhat steeper path in the latter period could make up for the slightly slower start.
In addition, a 25-40% requirement for the United States would garner very little support here, because it would appear both unnecessary, for the reasons I just noted, and beyond the realm of the feasible. The most ambitious proposals that have been seriously considered here, both those introduced in Congress last year and the objective that President Obama has endorsed, call for reductions equivalent to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. These would equate to around 15% below 2005 levels by 2020, and over 80% below those levels by 2050. So insisting on a 25-40% cut below 1990 for the United States is a prescription not for progress but for stalemate. Again, we need to be guided both by science and by common sense.”
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Meanwhile:
“Completely ignoring the IPCC recommendations of 25-40 percent reductions by 2020, Japan and Russia proposed cutting their respective emissions by merely 8 and 10-15 percent. These are only just better than the Kyoto Protocol goals which bind them to cut their emissions by 5-6 percent by 2012 from 1990 levels.”
Tread carefully, grasshoppers.
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Yes, we wouldn’t want to accidentally do something meaningful.
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Reducing 25-40% below 1990 levels would be a good idea if it were doable, since it would allow a less steep reduction path in the 2020-2050 time period.
Oh goody, if we manage to do hardly anything, we get to have the debate all over again in a few years. I’m sure everyone will line up for deep cuts then.
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It’s not meaningful at all.
It’s dancing about architecture to stop it raining.
As far as NZ is concerned, our participation can only ever be symbolic.
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Establish costs.
Take it to the New Zealand voters.
See if they agree with you on the level of sacrifices they’ll need to make.
Why didn’t you campaign on it?
New Zealand taxpayers didn’t vote for 40% cuts. They didn’t vote for a strong environmental agenda. So why should National push one?
There seems to be no political reality in the environmental stance.
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Its the Green’s job to push the govt of the day in the green direction. But we understand the political reality. At the same time, you can’t start at nothing and expect to get anywhere. Our target is 30% anyway, not 40% though the exact number isn’t what is important, but that it is challenging enough to invoke change.
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BP,
You keep asking for a plan… Here’s an infrastructure investment plan I did for fun (yes I am that sad) that would greatly reduce our waste, electricity and transport emissions… Would it hurt our economy, you be the judge, I know it would increase our government debt repayments (finance costs) and include a possible credit downgrade but it would reduce our dependence of foreign oil reducing our current account deficeit and help future proof us from the effects of peak oil…
As for agriculture well the only way to deal with their emissions would be to regulate and it would negatively effect the economy (at least initially and remember Rogernomics which a right winger like yourself should love initially hurt greatly), the three main areas I think regulation would help in agriculture;
1). Land conversion to forestry
2). Nitrous Oxide legislation and subsidies
3). Switch to organic farm targets and government intervention
Anyway here’s the rough plan for the first three sectors mentioned:
http://www.bettertransport.org.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1133
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No, because 40% is an arbitrary figure. May as well say 62%. Or 79%.
It’s pointless demanding 40% without weighing the costs. Lets say we can do 40% IF we also scrap welfare. We can’t incur the cost of both. Would people still be demanding 40%?
Actually, though it is arbitrary it isn’t THAT arbitrary. The problem is that the CO2 needs to be dropped to a level at which we can expect LESS than 2 degrees of warming.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126
There are other allocations of effort that may make sense but we have to reach 80% to 100% reduction in our global net emissions by 2050 or we will blow out 450 and with a great deal of confidence, remain in the danger zone long enough to trigger massive feedbacks that take the process out of our control permanently.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/02/0905232106.full.pdf+html
There is very little tolerance in the system for adding more net CO2. The length of time it remains in the atmosphere makes it extremely important to get down to something that looks like ZERO net emissions before we grow much older.
Note that 450 ppm is where the Antarctic goes ice-free in the paleoclimate.
Where we are now (389) is where there is no sea ice at either pole and is stable at plus 3 degrees in the paleoclimate.
The warming for the forcing we have now is avoidable to some extent, if we pull back now because the Ocean and Ice currently existing buffers our very rapid input of excess CO2.
Not models talking.
The G8 people are talking about 50% by 2050. THAT isn’t based on any science at all… (well maybe political science) nor is it suggested by any scientist.
The science says 100% reduction by 2050 or at worst 2080. The sooner the better. That holds us under 450 ppm.
So why go for the most aggressive possible target?
You’d be close if you said that it is because of my religion, but it isn’t AGW I worship, it is a more potent and ubiquitous deity called Murphy. If something can go wrong it will, and in THIS effort the things that can go wrong include political upheavals, economics, social problems… the entire range of the human condition.
If we assert 0 net in 2050 2050 we have 40 years to get it done. That’s 2.5%/yr, or a minimum of 25% by 2020. No slack. If we get 40% by 2020 we have done ourselves 2 favors. We have some slack in hand if something goes pear-shaped and we have bought time for the tech to get RID of CO2 to be put in play (… and to develop CATS). In a zero net emissions world we could (with CATS) hold the temperature at whatever we like for the 100 years it would take for natural processes and even slow sequestering techniques to reduce the CO2 overload.
It probably isn’t possible. I am not betting on it working (in accordance with my “religious” beliefs, but I think we are obligated to try.
respectfully
BJ
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Even the professional alarmists of realclimate have been forced to acknowledge that there hasn’t been any warming for about a decade.
The polite term, apparently, is ‘”plateau” in global mean temperature post-1998.’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupt ed-much-ado-about-natural-variability/
What was very revealing was that when I repeatedly pointed out this inconvenient truth I didn’t just receive vilification (which is expected) but, amazingly, outright denials that the charts showed any such thing.
Of course, just as when the Hockeystick was demolished (and we all remember how determined the alarmists were not to acknowledge that), so the admission of a complete lack of warming over the decade of the highest CO2 emissions in human history is not going to cause these fervent believers to question their doctrine.
It’s funny, the more the evidence piles up against them, the more tightly and angrily they cling to their faith.
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Well, I went to Gareth Morgans presentation on climate change tonight. A few thousand people turned out to hear a balanced view, as opposed the fundamentalist/ideological one we so often hear.
Very interesting. He hired the most reputable scientists on both sides of the debate, and let them fight it out. They agreed on quite a lot actually.
Gareth made the comment, rightly so, that the scientists have done a terrible job of communicating with the public. This has left a vacuum, which the uniformed, armchair scientists and politically motivated have filled with garbage.,
The conclusions of the worlds top climate scientists (peer reviewed by each other):
The debate is nowhere near settled. It is not yet beyond reasonable doubt that we’re causing a climate catastrophe. Therefore we are *right* to keep questioning.
Climate changes
The earth is warming (the short trend of cooling is too short to mean much)
co2 increase is man made
We don’t know what increased levels of co2 will do
There is no clear causation
In terms of policy, don’t use a hammer to crack a nut
Glad to hear my views confirmed, by the top scientists on both sides
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Wat
The last decade isn’t cooling. What Swanson describes isn’t a break from AGW. Nor is he telling you to relax, it was all a bad dream.
I have pointed out often enough the difference between a long term trend and what we have in the past 10 years. I have also pointed out and you have barely acknowledged, that the science doesn’t claim, expect, require, insist-on, demand or indicate that CO2 is the ONLY thing to force climate.
Nor does it insist on monotonically increasing temperatures.
YOU seem to see in this some sort of shell game being played with the science. Why you can’t accept that the science is doing its very best to capture ALL the complexities of the climate itself and has methods of dealing with variation is a mystery, but displaying your ignorance on this blog doesn’t change minds, it ONLY displays ignorance.
What do our results have to do with Global Warming, i.e., the century-scale response to greenhouse gas emissions? VERY LITTLE, contrary to claims that others have made on our behalf.
You would be one of those “others” or are you simply repeating what you heard.
However, this apparent impulsive behavior explicitly highlights the fact that humanity is poking a complex, nonlinear system with GHG forcing – and that there are no guarantees to how the climate may respond.
Further to this, Swanson et.al. published in January 2009, using data through 2008. In other words, the endpoint of their data WAS the deepest point of a deep solar cycle. The paper Swanson provides is a good analysis of something that looks to possibly be of interest. 1998 was a 3-sigma event. Swanson is hypothesizing that there are follow-on effects from such excursions. He is using wavelet analysis to attempt to tickle out internal changes in the ocean that may influence the decadal variability.
The data for 2009 is coming in and not that any ONE year should make a difference, I think it will show that Swanson et.al. have wound up with a bias due to the 2008 minimums. Nothing wrong with that. Nor does it realistically affect his hypothesis about the variability.
The data through may starts with +0.35 and runs to +0.4.
http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/hadcrut3-tempera ture-anomaly-may-2009/
The facts haven’t changed. The need to act hasn’t changed either.
Add up the last 10 years (the cooling or plateau years) and take the average. This doesn’t include 1998, the hot year and it picks up all the cooling. Add up the decade previous, including the 1998 data (I KNOW I have been through this with you before). The “cool” decade is 0.2 degrees warmer than the one with the hot outlier of 1998.
Since we’re going to be in an el-nino this year it is going to be very interesting to see the outcome over the next 6 months.
Finally, to quote from the PAPER, not from someone else’s analysis of it.
BJ
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Hey I say more about that
I was also there really it was one sided!
http://www.flipb.com/
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“The debate is nowhere near settled. It is not yet beyond reasonable doubt that we’re causing a climate catastrophe. Therefore we are *right* to keep questioning.
Climate changes
The earth is warming (the short trend of cooling is too short to mean much)
co2 increase is man made
We don’t know what increased levels of co2 will do
There is no clear causation
In terms of policy, don’t use a hammer to crack a nut
“don’t use a hammer to crack a nut”
who said that?
Glad to hear my views confirmed, by the top scientists on both sides
”
“But the weight of evidence is on the side of the alarmists”
He had to go outside of NZ to find a [qualified/ decent/ capable?] skeptic. Here they are third rate (”and calling them that is praising them”)
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So BP, you would prefer that the target is 25% to just do “what’s fair” for us for each generation?
I think you listened to the things you want to hear BP. Ask the man about risk management.
BJ
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BJ,
I think Tamino’s take on the RC post/Tsonis & Swanson is on the money – their analysis depends on finding a pattern in a very limited subset of the temperature. This doesn’t mean their ideas aren’t interesting, just that they’re less robust than some assume…
In any event, the El Nino getting under way at the moment will test their “pause” hypothesis very nicely.
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If I may quote you BluePeter,
“There are none so blind…”
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>>who said that?
I’m paraphrasing the conclusions
The weight of evidence lies with the alarmists, but there is still sufficient reasonable doubt for us to be skeptical.
>>He had to go outside of NZ to find a [qualified/ decent/ capable?] skeptic. Here they are third rate
Correct.
>>I think you listened to the things you want to hear BP. Ask the man about risk management.
Perhaps we all do that to a certain extent? I’m not ideologically positioned one way or the other, so the result either way doesn’t bother me. I think Gareth’s method was a good one (well-selected scientist reviewing scientist until their arguments ran out of steam) and you’ll be pleased to note he comes down more in favour of the warmists than the skeptics. As a lay-person, I’ll go alone with that view.
But…
He also said keep an open mind. This is nowhere near settled, and new information appears all the time. He also said that policy directives could get it badly wrong i.e we spend an awful lot of money achieving nothing
If there is a better analysis than Gareth’s, arrived at by pitting top scientists against each other, then point to it.
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Greenfly,
“If there is a better analysis than Gareth’s, arrived at by pitting top scientists against each other, then point to it.”
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You’d have been just as well to have stayed at home and spent your time on Kiwiblog Peter! How much did Morgan sting you for the evening of ’self confirmation’?
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Greenfly, aren’t you leaping to conclusions? Are you saying Dr Morgan – and his wife, who appears to be to quite environmentally minded – would try to push an agenda on this? Why? What’s in it for them to say the warmists have got a point?
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Gosh! Good on that wonderful Mr Key for stepping in to save good Kiwis from the perils of folic acid. I’m beginning to think of him as ‘Father’.
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>>organ sting you for the evening of ’self confirmation’?
I think it was $20, and the proceeds all went to a kids charity.
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Peter – am I saying..etc..? No. Am I leaping..? No.
I guess I was wishing an epiphany on you and this is the morning of my disappointment.
Mind you, you are only one person and what you do doesn’t matter a jot.
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Good on the Morgans – more power to them!
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>>evening of ’self confirmation’
If anything, it has moved me closer to the warmist side that the skeptic side.
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Incremental gains – small but not to be dismissed, I guess.
(
Warmist (so cosy!) now is it?
I was beginning to get used to Alarmist! )
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Warm Troopers
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.v. Septics
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Heh heh…
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You know all that oil stuff last year that so many read so badly wrong?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_a merican_bubble_machine/5
Take note of this bit:
“And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.”
Do not back cap-n-trade. You’re being had.
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I have wonderful news!
Did you know…
Although the biggest source of greenhouse gas is our oceans, the world’s natural wetlands also produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.
So we could offset out emissions by development on wetlands and save our shaky economies from ETs and/orCATs
http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/2009/01/top-15-climate-myths.html
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BP
I posted that link at least a week ago. I also said about it, that Cap & Betrayed is the only game in town in the USA at present, because the USA is no longer a democracy. Government of the people by the bankers for the bankers… using the term “banker” quite loosely. Nothing Goldman-Sacks-the-Planet doesn’t approve of will get through.
However, if there is any improvement possible globally in spite of their involvement I am likely to grit my teeth and pay-up. We have to survive long enough to have the revolution we need… and without change in other countries (which might be more realistically expected if the US does SOMETHING, even if GS owns the process and takes a sizeable amount of vigorish out of us) we don’t get there.
… but “for a nickel I would kill them” pretty well describes my attitude.
Has for a long time…. we KNOW about these people already BP.
respectfully
BJ
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Sallydeb
You missed the referent. CATS is “Cheap Access To Space”. I am probably the only one here who discusses it.
You don’t save the economy from it. You bless it for saving the damned thing by giving it room to grow.
Which is the one BAD thing about it. It allows the broken economic model to continue until it consumes the universe, instead of this insignificant speck of dirt.
The good things about it are a bit more numerous:
1. It gives people something to dream of, dreams that give kids a real reason to learn science.
2. It provides the ability to build mirrors that change the effective albedo of the planet directly… giving us control of the climate directly.
3. It provides the ability to build SSPS (Satellite Solar Power Systems) replacing polluting power systems with solar power (that is available at night too).
4. It gives us access to the mineral wealth of the asteroid belt.
5. It lets us scoop methane from the atmosphere of the gas giants.
….
I do not think that this is something you really want to save our economies from
respectfully
BJ
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Now as to those Wetlands…. ???
That website is so wrong I almost blew my lunch. WOW!
Not that it matters. I will focus on the wetlands issue only… but if the company that argument is keeping is any measure, it can only be some of the most shoddy analysis of the science that can be found.
Oh yes… there isn’t any reference to anything like a measurement or a fact… just to another blog. I can’t even guess where the numbers come from or how much “wetland” is involved or even what they are counting as a wetland.
The whole problem with this is that human activity gets added onto the natural cycle that WAS in balance until we started in on it. The 100 ppm added since the beginning of the industrial age is, by isotopic analysis, coming out of our smokestacks, not out of swamps. This LOOKS like the numbers from an already discredited paper, but as it isn’t referenced or even explicitly noted I can’t even guess.
Sallydeb… don’t rely on sites that make stuff up. The actual graph provided relating to “the hockeystick” looks nothing like their presentation, to see it go to page 55 of the report linked here.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-ts.pdf
I am serious about this. For advice about the science for sceptics stick with ClimateAudit, stay away from the secondary hangers-on.
respectfully
BJ
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Oops I thought CAT was Cap & Trade.
Looks very interesting BJ. Your techno version could still ruin economies if setting it up is hugely expensive to institue though.
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It IS specified as “Cheap”
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I write it “Cap & Betrayed” usually
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Sally has wonderful news!
I have wonderful news!
Did you know…
Although the biggest source of greenhouse gas is our oceans, the world’s natural wetlands also produce ..blah, blah, blah…
How disappointing!!
I thought Sally’s news would be that she’d found something meaningful and intelligent to say!
You are forever disappointing us Sally!
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BP
Here’s another take on the G8 actions I called unscientific –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/climate-change-emi ssions-uk
respectfully
BJ
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Also … dairy seems to be in deep poo all over the planet.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec09/dairy_07-13.html
respectfully
BJ
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Monbiot on “junk science” (which includes pretty much everything I’ve seen from the “it ain’t warming, it ain’t us and even if it is what’s so bad about it” crowd).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
From a couple of years ago, but our guests should recognize how their “sources” have largely been compromised.
respectfully
BJ
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bjchip,
- “I have pointed out often enough the difference between a long term trend and what we have in the past 10 years.”
And I have pointed out to you often enough that you are doing no such thing. The Hockeystick purported to show the long-term trend – a whole millenium no less. That was precisely why it had significance. But, with the Hockeystick exposed for what it is, the whole force of your argument died with it.
Yet, rather than concede that the long-term trend is no longer the evidence you thought it was, you instead cherry-pick a very brief period – the recovery from the Little Ice Age – and call that your “long-term trend” – in a desperate attempt to salvage the theory.
Half the recent warming occurred before the war, i.e. before really large-scale industrialisation and associated CO2 emissions, so let’s not pretend that that was due to AGW. But then, after the war, when CO2 emissions really started to increase, there was some two to three decades of cooling, right through the 70’s. Which only leaves that very brief two-decade period of warming of the 80’s and 90’s before the current flat/cooling since around the start of the century
What a come-down!: from the Hockeystick spanning a millenium to just two short decades as your evidence for AGW.
- “Why you can’t accept that the science is doing its very best to capture ALL the complexities of the climate itself”
I do; which is why I changed my mind. At the time, when the Hockeystick appeared to present irrefutable evidence of a serious problem caused by AGW I agreed that something serious had to be done.
But then true scientists (some of them amateurs) exposed the Hockeystick as nothing but an algorithm for generating hockeystick-shaped charts, whatever data is fed into it. And coincidentally they also exposed, and continue to expose, the distortions and outright lies that typify the warmers’ case: let’s not forget, the Hockeystick was not a mistake, it was a deliberate fraud (witness the infamous “censored” folder on Mann’s computer.) I’ve since come to learn that that attitude is typical of the professional warmers.
So, when the facts changed, I changed my mind. The real question is, why do you warmers cling so desperately to your climate alarmism years after the reason for it has been exposed as a fraud.
- “I have also pointed out and you have barely acknowledged, that the science doesn’t claim, expect, require, insist-on, demand or indicate that CO2 is the ONLY thing to force climate.”
And I have also pointed out to you that to concede that is to concede the whole argument. If the Hockeystick is wrong it necessarily follows that the alarmism and economic calculations associated with it are wrong: it is to agree with me that there are hugely powerful influences causing continuous and very significant natural climate variation.
So where are the press releases from all the professional alarmists – including the Greens – saying how their earlier position has now been proven very largely unfounded and that, contrary to their earlier claims, it is impossible to pick out any anthropogenic influence from amongst the enormous natural climate variation?
Where is their acknowledgement that the costs and benefits of Kyoto – which were highly dubious in the first place – must now be declared totally invalid in the light of new evidence?
Exactly.
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Wat,
Why are the people employed as climate scientists telling us that average surface temperatures on the Earth are increasing, and this increase is a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide (and a variety of other gases)? These scientists almost always have PhDs in atmospheric science or very closely related fields, and between them have many many years of experience studying the climate.
Are you really saying that the experts in the field are totally wrong, and we should believe some non-experts?
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And I have pointed out to you often enough that you are doing no such thing. The Hockeystick purported to show the long-term trend – a whole millenium no less. That was precisely why it had significance. But, with the Hockeystick exposed for what it is, the whole force of your argument died with it.
Bullsh!t Wat. Absolute bullsh!t. What do I care and what does ANYONE care, about whether changes due to other forcings caused climate change at other times in pre-history OR in medieval times? We’re now pushing above the Holocene optimum which was more like 10000 years ago. CO2 is going up 50 times faster than it ever did then and temperature is rising to match THAT forcing at rates unprecedented since the end of an ice-age and we are not at the END of an ice age. It doesn’t worry you at all.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-ts.pdf
Examine the graph on page 54, which doesn’t match much of what you claim to be a hockeystick, looks like the goalies hands and pads are included gripping the handle. It doesn’t matter… look at the delta T. Look at the paleoclimate for this much CO2… last seen 3 million years ago.
The working science relating to AGW is extremely robust with or without Mann et.al. and has NEVER! imagined or inferred that CO2 is the only thing to force climate.
“I have also pointed out and you have barely acknowledged, that the science doesn’t claim, expect, require, insist-on, demand or indicate that CO2 is the ONLY thing to force climate.”
And I have also pointed out to you that to concede that is to concede the whole argument.
I am frankly incredulous that anyone would even say such a thing. It is a logical non-sequiter… it simply does not follow.
Every model includes solar forcings because they actually help the model’s accuracy. Every climate scientist includes them because they know damned well that they are important… but they are NOT what is driving the warming we are seeing now.
So where are the press releases from all the professional alarmists – including the Greens – saying how their earlier position has now been proven very largely unfounded and that, contrary to their earlier claims, it is impossible to pick out any anthropogenic influence from amongst the enormous natural climate variation?
You won’t see any because it didn’t happen anywhere but in your imagination Wat. If you are looking at the decadal variation it is damned hard to pick up anything but noise, and this work trying to explain some of the NOISE in the signal has damned little to do with AGW. The author tells you that up front, but he might have just as well not bothered because you filter out everything that doesn’t agree with your special brand of anti-science. Bucolic-Old-Sir-Henry pointed out Tamino’s take
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/warming-interrupted/
…and Tamino is pointing out (correctly) that there was a la-nina included as the last data point in the series that was being examined.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyea rs.shtml
The professionally paid morons said what they were paid to say. Doesn’t it bother you that you are being USED?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
Some libertarians are smart enough to separate their understanding of science from their objections to big government.
Finally, since you INSIST on looking at short term variations, here is a shorter one.
Note the difference between the first 5 months of 2009 and the first 5 months of 2008. Look like it is cooling? Hmmmmm….
There is some indication that June will be even more of a shock to your system as there is an El-Nino in the pipeline. That last 0 entry may well be 0.5
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6563
No… the numbers aren’t official yet, but strangely MacIntyre has them.
This is from GISS
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif
I have said it before and I will keep telling you because someone else reading this will probably understand it better. SHORT TERM DOESN”T MATTER!!!
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Ts_vs.year+month.pdf
It is unfortunate that there is no “new evidence” dramatically disproving this theory, because if there were we could go on about our business secure in the knowledge that all is well. I would actually be very happy NOT to have to worry about my children’s future in a world where AGW has already happened.
Instead there is a mountain of evidence piled on top of additional data, piled on top of studies, models and analysis which all points at the same thing.
It is happening, it is us, it is BAD.
BJ
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Shucks… got moderated again Frog. – BJ
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http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Ts_vs.year+month.lrg.gif
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Another problem with Al’s graph is that temperature rise proceeded c02 rises. Carbon dioxide levels typically rise roughly 200 to 1,000 years after temperatures rise.
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Yet the temperature rises for thousands of years afterwards.
The science says CO2 also works as a feedback when other forcings bring the temperature up and allow CO2 to be released from the ocean… the temperature rises to release the CO2 which allows the temperature to rise some more which releases more and so forth. The initial forcing was almost certainly related to the Milankovitch cycles, but the temperature balance reached had as much to do with the feedbacks as with the forcing.
The CO2 concentration NOW however, has CO2 concentrations in the ocean INCREASING, because the chemistry involved in that balance depends on the concentration in the air as well as the temperature. The CO2 isn’t coming from the ocean. We aren’t at the end of an Ice-Age. There is no indication that the Sun is getting hotter (at scales of less than a billion years) .
This is discussed here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between- temp-and-co2/
BJ
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ONe of you correctly observed that the IPPC was dominated by highly qualified atmospheric scientists, creating computer models based on the behaviour of atmospheric gases.
The problem is that the climate is modified by at least thirteen systems. These include the oceans, the solar radiation, the solar particles, tectonic plate movements, the orbital variations, and even the path of the solar system through the galaxy (possible the major player when it comes to major Ice Ages) meteorological events and vulcanism, and of course the biosphere.
Many of the critics, or doubters come from these other disciplines who simply observe that the IPCC models are only partial models of a complex chaotic system. Freeman Dyson expresses this very well.
I am not sure why an atmospheric scientist is better qualified to speak on this matter than a solar physicist or a biologist, provided they are all sticking to their own knitting.
The new aqua satellites and the ones measuring concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane in the upper atmosphere are flooding us with data and we are only just beginning to process this data and gain some understanding.
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Owen rate this:
30,000 Scientists Want to Sue Al Gore For Fraud
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/
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Owen – those other disciplines are well represented in the IPCC science, which you would see if you examine the IPCC science (as I am sure you have)…
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-ts.pdf
What I see however (my opinion now) is people who have such degrees offering regurgitated fallacies and critiques of the climate science. Not actual scientific alternatives to AGW theory. What those scientists can legitimately present is a competing theory but more often seen are problems with their interpretations of atmospheric climate science. It isn’t their field, so they CAN make mistakes.
JH…. that link doesn’t take us to the Oregon petition. I assume that that is you wanted to point at. The connection to reality that is apparent at the linked site can only be regarded as… tenuous. A characteristic shared by the Oregon petition effort and James Inhofe.
respectfully
BJ
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That’s the first time I have heard of this
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
In 2001, Scientific American reported:
“ Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.[22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition#Signatories
[imagine back in the old days how long it would take to get that info]
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JH
Read this –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
respectfully
B J
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Here is a good example of new data. IT is not directly related to climate change as far as I know (although it may be) but shows why anyone who says “the sciences are settled” is being a little presumptious.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/16dec_giantbreach.htm
Brilliant stuff.
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Owen
I worry about the magnetic field weakening too.
It is simply not anything we can do anything about.
The thing about science is that it is ALWAYS possible to disprove a theory. It happens all the time. Especially with new theories. However, there has to be something that contradicts the theory for it to happen.
As theories go, AGW is very robust, the contradictory science is non-existent. There just isn’t any evidence of the sort that might invalidate it… yet, and it is a risk that has to be taken into account.
If we address it and put in place a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions and we are wrong ( about 1 chance in 20 ), our descendants will have more coal and oil they can burn while they laugh at our ignorance. Some people will die. Some people will be impoverished.
If we don’t address it and we are wrong, we get plus 4 degrees or plus 5 degrees in the next 150 years. That’s what we’re risking if we bet that there is in fact some contradictory science that we haven’t discovered yet and it turns out that all the scientists were correct after all.
Plus 4 is stable with no more summer ice, 25 meters of sea level rise, drought or floods in most of the currently arable regions of the planet.
Stability takes centuries maybe a thousand years to achieve. In the meantime… climate wars, instability of governments, climate refugees, a LOT of dead people… maybe the population is halved or worse, and not in any controlled or benign way. The feedbacks could do us in, we could simply kill each other to the point where advanced civilization is no longer sustainable anywhere at all, it is unknown territory for the human species.
The risk is not what Lomborg imagines it is. It is far worse.
BJ
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We also risk throwing away a lot of money – and people die – and the temperature rises regardless.
You have no money left to adapt.
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True BP
We addressed that very point EARLIER.
If the whole world signs on we have a good shot at making it, and the caveat was that we watch the feedback areas we know about like hawks, and watch our trading partners as well. Whatever else we are doing we don’t put ourselves at a big disadvantage vis-a-vis the rest of the planet.
On a planetary basis the same caveat. If the feedbacks kick in and we no longer care we can go ahead and burn more dead dinosaurs to adapt.
Of course, the renewable resources and nuclear plants and other things we build in our effort to cope with the task of bringing down the CO2 is all to the good. What “adaptation” did you have in mind BP, that it is possible in one scenario and not in others?
Our adaptations could be:
1. Not building any more infrastructure < 18 meters above sea level. That’s sort of arbitrary, < 25 meters is more accurate, but there is a finite lifespan for any building.
2. Building something like Transmission Gully, because the coastal sections of SH1 are going to go underwater, the new route needs to be opened.
3. Shifting infrastructure and population to higher ground.
4. Identifying farming areas that will still be available when the water rises and keeping the population from building houses on that. There will be a shortage of arable land.
5. Arranging a pipeline or aqueduct from the west coast into Canterbury (How much of that land will be above sea level if sea level is 25 meters higher? )
6. Probably a couple of other things…
Now ask yourself how many people are going to do any of that until the ocean comes and takes their Bach ?
The adaptation wants more planning than I just did, but I accept that it needs doing.
Nobody is opposing it (although my party has a blind spot where the gully is concerned). Nobody has bothered to PROPOSE it either.
What the TARGET is and how well other countries agree to it is important now. That’s our “going in” position for the conference.
I don’t think now is the time to do this.
The question of what to aim at is the current issue AFAIK. Aim high.
If the conference outcome is disappointing, adapt.
After we know the outcome of the conference is plenty of time to move an adaptation bill.
respectfully
BJ
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How droll.
The planned emissions trading system is the wrong approach and should be replaced by a carbon tax, offset by lowering other taxes such as income or fuel tax, according to a new report.
Right-wing think tank the Centre for Independent Studies says an emissions tax linked with other tax cuts would be a big improvement over the planned ETS.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/2598118/Carbon-tax-better-than-ETS-pla n
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I’m dismayed to see that the Greens are still allowing the neoliberals to frame the debate in their favour by accepting their argument that sustainabiliy requires people to forgo “wealth” ( a loaded term if there ever was one) and merely quibble over how much the public stands to lose. Hardly an aspirational call for people to join your cause.
You allow them to define the vocabulary. Accepting without question, their definition of value, the ascendancy of monetary calculations of value over any other metric, and the failure to challenge the fundamental assumptions of neoclassical economics aside from the naive belief that somehow public servants are free of the decision making failures of market participants and will thus be able to alleviate any problem that crops up whatever their remotest possibility, whilst also neglecting to recognise the role that they play in stimulating the wonton exploitation of the environment.
“If development has scarred American landscapes and shredded ecosystems — and it has, Mr. Babbitt and Mr. Kennedy argue — much of the damage has been done with the connivance of the federal government.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/science/earth/30book.html
Governors across the country, notes LeRoy, have begun to talk “smart growth,” urging that land-use policies undergird existing communities. But their development programs keep promoting sprawl. “It’s nuts. The two-state policy silos need to be broken down and corrected.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003675084_peirce23.html
Despite increasing concerns over climate change and other environmental consequences of our heavy reliance on oil, the U.S. government continues to subsidize the fuel. Subsidies to oil are provided to producers, transporters, and consumers in varied and often subtle ways. These subsidies not only cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year, but they often exacerbate environmental damage. They can also reduce oil prices, suppressing market signals to governments, oil consumers, and oil producers to begin shifting to alternatives.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/climate/1998jun9.html
Seeing the above it is a wonder that the “social-democratic” Left still insists on accepting the neoliberals non sequitur of the “free-market”. Perhaps its a convenient straw-man stalking horse to rail about and use as a rationale for their continued existence?
Even ecological economists don’t question the neoclassical definition of wealth. They go even further than even they do, through seeking to apply a monetary valuation on what few elements of existence that have yet to be colonized by the monetary economy. I do recognise they do so with the laudable intent of attempting to rationalize its protection from exploitation. An example is so-called ecosystem services, such as flood prevention and natural pollutant filtration (wetlands), carbon dioxide absorbsion and flood prevention (trees), and natural fertilisation (bees, microorganisms). Tragically capitulating to the expectations of politicians driven by solely monetary concerns actually DEVALUES nature, as the economic value of nature is often temporary and ephemeral, there is a danger that once the economic rationale for protecting a certain area of nature from exploitation fades so the will the will to defend it.
http://www.biology.duke.edu/wilson/EcoSysServices/papers/Mccauley2006. pdf
The attitude of the Greens appears to be epitomized by this statement by Russel Norman in a past blog post right here on Frogblog.
“It’s a funny position we find ourselves in. Just as the social democrats (Europe), labourists (UK, Oz, NZ) and new dealers (US) of the 1930s and 1940s had to save capitalism from its own destructive tendencies by introducing a range of modifications and interventions on the market system, so now the Green Parties of the world find ourselves in possibly a similar position.”
In a following post I will attempt to address the gaps that the Greens (and the environmental movement as a whole) have left in the economic debate.
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sleepytreehugger said:
I’m dismayed to see that the Greens are still allowing the neoliberals to frame the debate
I entirely agree with he (or she) that would languidly hug a tree.
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bjchip,
- “What do I care and what does ANYONE care, about whether changes due to other forcings caused climate change at other times in pre-history OR in medieval times?”
Before you can make any claim to have identified evidence of an anthropogenic influence in the indistinguishable behaviour of recent climate trends, you must first fully and completely understand and account for every natural agent. And believe me, despite what you imagine, we are decades from even approaching that situation.
- “It is unfortunate that there is no “new evidence” dramatically disproving this theory, because if there were we could go on about our business secure in the knowledge that all is well.”
Oh dear. Despite what I just said, you are admitting here that your null hypothesis is that any warming must be ascribed to human activity, until it is proven to be still more natural climate variation.
What an extraordinary admission. And what an extraordinary mindset. I mean, really, we’re through the looking glass, people: in your mind, our ignorance of how the climate works actually becomes support for your theory!
- “CO2 is going up 50 times faster than it ever did then and temperature is rising to match ”
But it isn’t, is it. It’s flat or cooling, and has been for about a decade. And the sea temperature charts are also showing cooling. And enough with the ‘CO2 is going up really really fast’, it’s still really really insignificant, and its trivial contribution as a greenhouse gas is largely already saturated.
- “Every model includes solar forcings because they actually help the model’s accuracy. Every climate scientist includes them because they know damned well that they are important… ”
Ah, the famous models, which apparently can be used to “prove” just about anything. Got an alarming hockeystick-shaped chart? The models concur. Suddenly abandoning the chart and forced to concede an entirely different climate pattern? The models concur with that also. Not seeing the essential fingerprint of AGW in the form of Antarctic warming? The models concur.
Unfortunately, what these models don’t concur with is reality; such as the last decade of flat/cooling temperatures.
It’s now been found, incidentally, that one of the gaping flaws in these supposed models is that they have been vastly over-estimating the cooling effect of aerosols; or, to put it another way, ascribing hugely more warming powers to CO2 than it could ever warrant: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/15/9373/#more-9373
Of course, if your fanciful belief that all natural agents have been identified and fully accounted for were true, such discoveries would be impossible, because there’d be nothing more to learn. Maybe that was the last one?
Oh, and there’s a bit about CO2 saturation on that page. Oh, and a chart showing how well (or otherwise) Hansen’s model-based predictions have worked out…
The problem, of course, is that you can’t create a computer model of something which you don’t understand; all you are in fact doing is modelling your own prejudices. That’s why they have proved to be such failures.
However, there is another approach, which doesn’t try to model climate agents but which applies complex maths to detect patterns in what appears to be a chaotic system. The results are intriguing: http://www.wisn.com/weather/18935841/detail.html
One last thing. Stop banging the table and claiming I’m only interested in short-term trends. It is the warmers who cherry-pick and switch periods. First it was a millenium but then, when they eventually conceded the large natural climate variability, that period became strong evidence against their theory, so they suddenly dropped it and cherry-picked the recent recovery from the Little Ice Age as their period of choice. When you make up your minds, let us know.
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First we have to stop going up!
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5741706/greenhouse-gases-from -energy-jump-on-kyoto-account/
Trevor.
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Geez Wat.
I just finished pummeling a tag team over on Farrar’s site and here you are again with more absolute rubbish to be hauled.
Before you can make any claim to have identified evidence of an anthropogenic influence in the indistinguishable behaviour of recent climate trends, you must first fully and completely understand and account for every natural agent.
Which “natural agent” do you have as a candidate for driving CO2 up 50 times faster than any time in any history, with temperature rising up to 7 times faster than it did at the end of the last Ice Age?
CO2 being a gas with a well defined physical absorption spectrum and known capacity as a greenhouse component and a good match in theory for the observed effects.
0.7 degrees/century on current form.
At the end of the ice age… 6 degrees in 6000 years, 0.1 degree per century.
As usual, you are blowing smoke.
The fact is that there is no requirement for theory to EXCLUDE all possible unknowns. Theory only has to explain the world as it is observed. It has to be explicative. It doesn’t have to take the form of a legal proof that would result in conviction in a court of law, and that is exactly what you are demanding here. I don’t have to identify the other suspects… that’s YOUR job since you insist that we’re innocent. You have to come up with a plausible and realistic alternative to allow reasonable doubt.
At present there isn’t a competing theory. There is just a lot of smoke.
Oh dear. Despite what I just said, you are admitting here that your null hypothesis is that any warming must be ascribed to human activity.
There is more than one thing going on here.
The first question is whether there is warming at all. That seems pretty decisively settled over the past 100 years. It has. That’s the end of your “null hypothesis”.
Go ahead and assert your null hypothesis that it hasn’t warmed over the past 100 years and then play with your statistics and examine the data. Come back when you’ve figured out that reality is different from your opinion.
The second theory has to do with causation. That theory says it is our CO2 that is causing the warming. Perhaps someone should have sat down and provided this as a formal theory for simple people and pushed it into the Wikipedia. Since the theory is that it IS us, the null hypothesis is that it is NOT.
If you don’t take this problem as multi-part, you may become confused.
But it isn’t, is it. It’s flat or cooling, and has been for about a decade. And the sea temperature charts are also showing cooling.
Well no Shunda… Since you like your short term datapoints,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2009/jun/global.html#curr ent-month
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variat ions_Rev_png
And enough with the ‘CO2 is going up really really fast’, it’s still really really insignificant, and its trivial contribution as a greenhouse gas is largely already saturated.
Saturated? almost true… but not insignificant. The physics tells us that we have to increase the concentrations logarithmically to get linear effects, so there are diminishing returns from our excesses… BUT the full effects of the current level are centuries from being felt.
The point about the speed is that we’ve pushed things so hard so fast that we haven’t yet felt the effects.
Continuing to emit keeps the CO2 high… which raises temperature which risks feedbacks from some other gases that are NOT fully saturated, like methane, and I am not talking about cows.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3647
Myhre has an interesting result which is within the error band set by the IPCC. Analyzing it requires that I have a subscription to the paper, and I don’t. However, if you reckon that it is going to save the planet from what we have already done you probably need to re-examine the history of the planet at these levels of CO2.
Hansen – Now I do not know what the clown at Watts site thinks he is proving by taking the worst case projection that Hansen made on the data he had access to in 1988 and saying “hey look, it isn’t perfect”. It wasn’t even Hansen’s first choice of model parameters.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-pro jections/
Whatever he thinks (or you think), it isn’t particularly meaningful. We’ve moved on. Hansen did a good job then, he is doing a good job now.
Tsonis is the other half of Swanson and Tsonis. Who had their work aired in RealClimate recently and that was already discussed. It isn’t compelling. Their last data point happened to coincide with the lowest recent year of data.
You ARE only interested in the trends that match your particular prejudice Wat. It is obvious to everyone. It is so blatant that it screams.
The problem you have is that different periods are significant to different effects. THAT is natural. Comparing effects on different time scales is like trying to measure the effects of tides by looking at the amplitudes of waves…. or vice-versa.
You have your mind made up, closed and locked.
I can’t help you with that, and I don’t particularly care if you ever understand anything at all. I simply wish that you’d quit pushing cr@p in here that I have to shovel out.
Go read Gareth Morgan’s book. Leave me alone until you do.
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/oh_no_its_making_well_reasoned ?utm_source=b-section
I should have been asleep 2 hours ago.
BJ
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The smoke that wat continues to emit might be enough to shield us from the sun, lowering the temperature here on earth. Wat may yet earn the title, ‘Captain Planet’, climate hero!
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Egads…
Somehow I lost the plot yesterday and imagined I was addressing Shunda right in the middle of the post to Wat. That warrants an apology to Shunda, who has shown evidence of being a relatively sensible and polite guest even when he disagrees.
Shunda… I apologize.
respectfully
BJ
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greenfly said:
The smoke that wat continues to emit might be enough to shield us from the sun, lowering the temperature here on earth. Wat may yet earn the title, ‘Captain Planet’, climate hero!
Nah! It is the wrong sort of smoke. If it were light coloured smoke, it might increase the earth’s albedo and reflect back some sunlight. Unfortunately Wat’s smoke is the dark-coloured smoke that absorbs all the light and just generates a lot of hot air – a product of incomplete processing of the material available.
Trevor.
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“a product of incomplete processing of the material available”
burn!
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I have to agree with Dr Nick Smith that New Zealand will have a difficult task getting much below our 1990 levels:
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/5743793/emissions-reduction-t arget-a-huge-task-smith/
Of course, what makes this even harder is that National have taken almost every opportunity to increase our emissions with their actions in the last 8 months, and didn’t do much in the years that they were the government last decade.
Trevor.
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Then poor Dr Smith will need to put his nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel and get going on it!
His first job will be to wake his slumbering colleagues (a quick slap around the chops ought to do it) then poke his party’s business, farming and industry genies back into their bottles, peg the lips of the blustering bloggers and we’ll be good to go.
Should have that done by, say…
never!
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>>Then poor Dr Smith will need to put his nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel and get going on it!
Nah. New Zealanders don’t want radical greenism. Only 7% do.
His job is to steer a sensible course, which he is doing.
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Peter, just like you, Dr Smith knows that climate change is set to tip our present world on it’s head and just like you, he’s too timid to take the necessary steps to avert that tumble. Doubtless you and he will get the opportunity to explain, perhaps to each other, how you were nearly right, but by then, it probably won’t matter a jot.
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“Of course, what makes this even harder is that National have taken almost every opportunity to increase our emissions with their actions in the last 8 months,”
Yeah, I suppose they should follow liarbores good example?
pffft!!
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“he’s too timid to take the necessary steps to avert that tumble. ”
Greenfly, we are spectators in this “crisis” it doesn’t matter what you, me, Dr Smith or Keisha thinks, it is all irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
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Shunda – that’s where believing in a saviour gets you!
I’m part of the ‘grand scheme of things’ and don’t capitulate because the challenge is great, the way you and Bluepeter do. I’ll fight til the bitter end, should it be bitter. I’m not content to be a spectator, despite the time I spend here. No ‘blessed one’ is going to save my bones, I’ll have to do that myself.
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I mean Shunda, what are you going to do (while BluePeter counts his shekels and the dark clouds gather) pray?
And with that, I’ll head to bed
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Don’t get me wrong greenfly I think we should be committed to a sustainable future, but surely you realize Dr Smith can’t do a lot re the big picture.
, hmmmmmm there’s a thought, we could MAKE eveyone listen then…………..
Personally I want to lead a more sustainable life simply because it is the right thing to do, I don’t need a crisis to do it.
If NZ developed some technology breakthrough on sustainable practice, things might be a bit different, and I guess this is a possibility.
Barring that, we really don’t matter and will be along for the ride on what other nations determine.
Unless we develop nuclear weapons
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Some people enjoy dancing about architecture, I guess.
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