by frog
Happy New Year to one and all!
General debate, 5 January, 2010
Published: January 5, 2010
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Please use 
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Perking ticket fails to stick.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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The New Zealand Press Council
Box 10879,
The Terrace, Wellington
I am not sure but that someone was sending me a message by printing that.
Someone at the top in that fishwrapper is stepping on the denialist gas.
I wonder if he can justify printing an outright lie as they did.
respectfully
BJ
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(Are you playing the fall-guy on purpose, BP, or have you too, run out of coffee?)
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BP, you link to John Bishop’s blog, which fails to link to a solitary source to justify his conclusion that Buy Kiwi Made was a “flop”. If you read the actual evaluation (PDF 768kB) you will discover:
So BKM achieved most of its objectives, BP, and was far from the “unmitigated disaster” you call it or the “flop” John Bishop calls it.
Although identifying self-reported increased likelihood of buying NZ made products, the evaluation could not identify whether BKM resulted in actual changes in consumer purchase. That was because the research necessary to determine whether there was actual change in consumer purchasing was outside the terms of reference for the evaluation.
The incoming National-led Government, without doubt for political reasons, did not want that research done since it never had any intention to continue the BKM campaign.
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“Overall, while the BKM campaign has achieved many of its objectives, we have not found convincing evidence of significant behavioural impact commensurate with the cost of the campaign. The economic impact of the campaign therefore appears limited.”
The final paragraph of frogs post sums it up nicely, No economic impact from the campaign.
“US Consumers don’t care where a product is made, buy XXX made campaigns dont work” Kevin Roberts, at a NZ trade and enterpise event in NY city. The irony is that Saatchi & Saatchi ran the Greens Buy NZ made campaign. Good on them for profiting from the Green party idiots, pity the poor NZ taxpayers who pay for the green party idiots.
I await the frog spin
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BKM was also associated with the phrase “and keep your country working”.
Hmm, that doesn’t sound much like an international, export-led marketing campaign, does it?
Are you getting confused with the “100% Pure New Zealand” campaign, which was primarily aimed at overseas markets for tourism and our primary produce?
John Bishop is well-known as a biased source, basically a mouth-piece for various far-right interests; his son is one of the most annoying members of the right-wing groups on VUW campus, as he rorts his way thorugh a Law degree and some sort of commerce study.
Frog –
this may be of interest, if you haven’t spotted it yet:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3203448/NZs-cyber-spies-win-new-powers
Nicky Hager scoops the pool again, while we’re on the subject of interesting and relevant journalists.
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Those objectives are pure nonsense. An admission that the thing is a failure from the start.
It’s a BUY kiwi made campaign.
There can be only one sensible objective.
People buy more kiwi made.
Awareness is meaningless. It’s like saying people are slightly more aware of Winston Peters. If he doesn’t get the votes, the “awareness” campaign is complete waste of time and money.
You need to understand the most simple rule in retailing. What people SAY, and what they are AWARE of means nothing.
It’s what they DO.
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Nah. Trolls have greener skin.
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Hawaii 5 0 (00000)
(It’s kinda cryptic, but here’s the key)
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Isn’t john Bishop a PR person (ie lie for business)?
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@icehawk 4:51PM
Most often yellow (like THE JACKET) in my experience icehawk. But almost as often blue.
Unfortunately, any mix of yellow and blue ends up as far from green as possible on the political spectrum.
Pity we can’t do politics on colour mixing – Greens would win every time.
Oh, and jh, yes you got it – John Bishop is just a lie for business.
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This is from the Cement and Concrete Association of NZ:
The key positive factor in housing, and in economic prospects generally, will be migration, with fewer Kiwis leaving (given limited job prospects in Australia and the UK), and resilient inward migration. Annualised net migration will lift to a peak of around 27,000 in late 2009 (from around 17,000 in early 2009) before stabilising at around 10,000 per annum.
• Following a quiet year to March 2010, residential building activity is expected to increase over the next five years to keep pace with demand from a growing population. Growth in residential building tends to move with or lead economic activity.
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Interesting information about the real Blue Peter:
P (Papa)
The Blue Peter.
In harbour: All persons should report on board as the vessel is about to proceed to sea.
(i.e. “All at Sea”)
At sea: It may be used by fishing vessels to mean: “My nets have come fast upon an obstruction.”
(i.e. “A hook-up’)
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I looked thru John Bishops blog:
“A tough talking Treasury working paper is calling for further changes to immigration policies and investment rules so New Zealand can gain more benefits from its open economy.”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/tp
http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/blog/politics/kiwis-insular-world-view-needs-change
He doesn’t link to the actual paper but:
“Development and population growth will intensify pressure on natural
resources, especially greenhouse gas emissions and water. By 2025, large
parts of the world will be in conditions of water scarcity.9
”
“Two ‘Kiwi’ attitudes that may have economic relevance are the importance of
lifestyle and a ‘number 8 wire’ mentality. Both appear to be supported by the
available survey-based evidence.22 Other attitudes that are sometimes
raised are a lack of aspiration (a ‘boat/bach/BMW’ attitude) and tall poppy syndrome. There is little available evidence to support these attitudes, and in
any case it is possible that an apparent lack of aspiration could in reality be
other drivers (such as lack of competition stifling entrepreneurial activity23).
”
“Immigrants’ net impact on GDP per person is likely to be positive, but
small. The effects of migration are complex and can be both positive and
negative on economic performance. “26
“Overall population appears to matter less for economic performance
than effective market size. It is sometimes suggested that a higher
population would allow greater economies of scale and higher growth, and
could be achieved through higher immigration. However, the more
important determinant appears to be ‘effective’ market size – that is, the
market size achieved through both the domestic market and through
international connections, including people flows.33
”
Immigrants come mainly for lifestyle and family, while emigrants leave
for job opportunities. While motivations vary, surveys suggest that the
main ‘pull’ factors to New Zealand are lifestyle, the climate and clean, green
environment, safety and security, and to provide a better future for their
children. The main ‘push’ factors are job opportunities and standard of
living. 46
Immigration could put downward pressure on native workers’ wages*,
depending on conditions. Standard economic models suggest that an
influx of foreign workers is associated with reduced market wages and
increased returns to capital.48 The degree to which this occurs and the
relative strength of the effects depend on a number of factors, such as the
skill difference between immigrant and native workers (more difference,
less effect) and the elasticity and ownership of capital.
*Chinese drivers are increasingly common in the tourist industry, some are rumoured to work only for tips and commissions. Guides and drivers share rooms and the guides drive rental vans when they aren’t guiding. Cruise ships bring employment but it is intermittent work. Our yawnions donate to the Labour Party (don’t know why).
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This is worth a read:
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/01/04/global-bear-rally-of-2009-will-end-with-japan.aspx
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WHEN IS THE WORLD GOING TO END ?
Drakula has just been blogging on werewolf.co.nz and apparently none of us are to worry too much about the environmental and economic woes because Nostradamus has just been updated and the world will probably end in 2014!!!
BUT don’t worry about that too much because if you have all been good girls and boys you can all get to live forever in heavan.
Of course I am an epicurion and challenge the scientific methodology (if there is any) of the above statement.
As for the NZ made campaign I am all for it but if free trade is supposed to enhance the global freedon of humanity as the free trade idealagogues claim, then would I be allowed to go to China without a passport or much qualification and get a job?
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Good quoter from Mombiot;
“In a new paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Sir Partha Dasgupta makes the point that the problem with gross domestic product is the gross bit(6). There are no deductions involved: all economic activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to, not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure as beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.
Most importantly, no deduction is made to account for the depreciation of natural capital: the overuse or degradation of soil, water, forests, fisheries and the atmosphere. Dasgupta shows that the total wealth of a nation can decline even as its GDP is growing. In Pakistan, for example, his rough figures suggest that while GDP per capita grew by an average of 2.2% a year between 1970 and 2000, total wealth declined by 1.4%. Amazingly, there are still no official figures which seek to show trends in the actual wealth of nations. ”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/01/04/consumer-hell/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
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Hamster cages at good price?
We’re saved!
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Imagine how much awareness we could have benefited if the government had spent a hundred million!
lol wut
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I was in a bit of a hole for hamster cages myself, saved!
Weirdest spam comment i’ve seen in a while.
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There’s this guy and he has a ‘B’ in his bonnet
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@BluePeter 9:24 AM
How do you substantiate that statement BP?
Determining the number of people converted to buying NZ made who wouldn’t have otherwise done so was not part of the evaluation. There is therefore no evidential basis to make any statement of fact re the actual number of people converted to buying NZ made.
12% of consumers surveyed report that they are more influenced to buy New Zealand made goods. I agree that self-reporting of likelihood of change doesn’t always equate with actual change, but there is no evidence to suggest your “too small to measure, possibly zero” figure is anything other than plucked from the air to suit your political ideology.
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Determining the number of people converted to buying NZ made who wouldn’t have otherwise done so was not part of the evaluation.
Why do an evaluation then?
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Sorry, deleted the hamster spam before I realised people we’re having so much fun with it.
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Greens policy of more hamster spam thanks.
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Oh, and I wonder why!
Don’t you think it’s comical that a “Buy NZ Made” campaign doesn’t have buying products made in NZ as a metric?
Awareness is the easiest target for an ad agency to hit. Run enough advertising and you have awareness. It works as a metric for public service messages i.e. look twice at intersections, but it’s a cop out for anything else.
Remember the advertisement “Don’t leave home until you’ve seen the country”? The guy in the canoe about to go over the falls? That’s awareness. It’s really easy. But it’s a waste of money if it’s not linked to a transaction, because the true objective is to create a measurable change in people’s behavior i.e. they choose to holiday here rather than overseas. If you don’t achieve that objective, generating awareness is worthless.
That is truly terrible. I would have expected that number to be much higher. Why? Because there is no jeopardy in answering “yes” to such a survey question. Depending on how you ask the question, people would be very reluctant to answer “no”, as it would feel unpatriotic.
This has nothing to do with ideology. This is solely about taking $10m of taxpayer money and wasting it.
Tell me, how much would be too much to spend generating awareness? $1B? $10B? How about buying up every ad spot on every channel for the next year, featuring Oliver Driver?
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BP – you forgot to write ‘hilarious’ at the bottom of your 10:29 post!
Hilarious!
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More evasion.
Hilarious
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Hamster-spam sounds like an animal rights issue, Bro!
(comes in very small cans)
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It’s impossible not to generate awareness with a $10m spend in NZ.
It’s a nonsense metric, achievable by anyone.
1. Buy up almost $10m worth of prime time advertising on TV, radio and place ads in newspapers.
2. Show an image of Greenflys organic carrots, with the words “Greenflys Organic Carrots – Yum!” underneath.
3. Ask people if they are more aware of Greenflys organic carrots than they were before.
That’s awareness.
It’s also a total waste of money, although Greenfly may enjoy the attention at the taxpayers expense.
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You’re
not
getting
much
traction
Blue
Peter
!
(Anyway, my carrots are already better known than Ohakune’s, according to my research).
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I hardly expect the Green Party to acknowledge their own rampant stupidity.
How can they do anything stupid? After all, they’re so smart!
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The effect has to be marginal. Note the manner in which the question is asked. I would have answered “no” as I already make an effort to buy NZ made goods… and yes I do pay somewhat for that privilege in some cases, and the advertisement won’t change my behaviour in this respect.
I don’t see the notion of spending money to encourage that behaviour as necessarily wasteful.. or not… and the fact that it wasn’t measured in terms of effect speaks mostly to the difficulty of measuring an effect. What WOULD Joe Six-Pack have done if there were no ad? It is highly unlikely that anyone else could know as he almost certainly doesn’t.
Best case would be measurements of proportions of sales in categories where there is a NZ made alternative product and as soon as you make that stipulation you’re in trouble, because the “market efficiency” advocates have gutted NZ capacity to make anything. We’ve been over this before. The cost to our economy is staring you in the face and stomping on your feet and you won’t acknowledge its presence.
I love it. Companies spend billions worldwide to get brand recognition and to advertise products. They don’t do it because it doesn’t work mate. Yet as soon as the advertising is directed at something you find ideologically inconvenient there is “no proof that it works”.
Even better, you want the country to be “more productive” and to grow its economy and yet anything that smacks of doing that is “picking winners” and government interference in free trade and I don’t know how many other hot buttons of yours and you scream about how stupid government is. About this you surely have a point… and the only thing more stupid is no government at all.
The “free market” as promoted by the Chicago School fails brutally when information asymmetry exists and that is the RULE rather than the exception. Stiglitz proved that some time ago.
BJ
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How can they do anything stupid? After all, they’re so smart!
BP, that’s a pretty stupid post.
In what way have we been “stupid? I can think of a couple but in general we’ve got the most important stuff entirely correct (which doesn’t make us popular, but IS sometimes more important than playing to the crowd). Exercising better judgment about when to play to the crowd would help us enormously. I would accept that in this we are occasionally a bit dense.. but our principles are clear.
BJ
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Traction!
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I’ve generated some awareness!
And for less than $10m…..
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And without pulling on an orangutan suit … or have you .. ?
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BJ, I do have experience in this area.
If the effect is marginal – I would argue virtually non-existent – then don’t waste $10m of taxpayer money on it. The money could be better used elsewhere.
It is no surprise the effect would be so insignificant, because it wasn’t linked to any meaningful metrics or coherent strategy to alter behavior. It’s not enough to say “Buy NZ Made”. It’s piss*ng in the wind. People buy on value and price, not origin, and it is very difficult (read: expensive) to change that behavior.
It’s 101 stuff. It’s basic.
The fact you think that “market efficiency has gutted NZs ability to make anything” shows that you at least acknowledge the fact there is nothing there to even sell! So why advertise it?
Brand spend is different. Brand spend occurs when you have multiple near-identical services. Brand becomes the differentiator. Brand spend is very expensive and typically on-going. See Coca Cola. Even then, they still must measure return at the bottom line, not awareness. i.e. Kiwis will remember Clayton’s – the drink you have when you’re not having a drink. High brand awareness, low take-up. Fail.
Messages must resonate in order to work. And – at the risk of stating the obvious – if you don’t have something to sell them (kiwi made items), you’re not going to make a shred of difference with a brand campaign.
The country will be more productive if foolish politicians stop taking money off productive business and wasting it.
Yes, I’m annoyed. I’m an exporter of services into the US. Why should my taxes subsidise wasteful local campaigns, which appear to me to be nothing more than a misguided memorial?
Stupid. Wasteful. Pointless. And the Greens are to blame.
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BTW, anyone notice the significant amount of global warming going on in the Northern hemisphere right now?
Brrrrrr……
Kinda poetic, really. I suspect Gaia is demonstrating an ironic sense of humour…
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Anyone know the definition of “volatility”?
NIWA says last decade the warmest ever in NZ:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10618660
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Vol⋅a⋅tile: \ˈvä-lə-təl – changeable; mercurial; flighty. An aspect of natural phenomenon, seized upon by desperate head-in-the-sanders seeking to deny the obvious.
“Oh look! It’s dark outside. That proves the sun has died” … etc.
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However, a WMO prediction that 2009 would be the warmest year on record was not borne out in New Zealand, which saw slightly cooler than average temperatures.
Kinda like quoting a mere ten years worth of temperatures, you mean.
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Hilarious!
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Grow yer own, Brits!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8440863.stm
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Volatility means different things to different people.
To a classical alchemist it means a measure of the tendency of a substance to vaporize.
To a neo-classical psuedo-alchemist it means the standard deviation [of the continuously compounded returns of a financial instrument] with a specific time horizon.
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So we’re in agreement that quoting short, cherry picked periods, like since, say, the early 1900s, is pretty much meaningless?
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(whispers) Boring!
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BP
Here is how you figure out how long is “long enough” to spot a trend in the series.
That isn’t exactly the same as examining successive decades, but a couple of successive decades would seem to me to be a fairly strong indication. Pointing out the warmest 10 year period in the past 150 or so would constitute a fair indication given that the next warmest decade was the one just before it. The series in question is not 10 years. It is over a hundred. Perhaps there is something there after all.
I never took you for a whole-hearted denialist BP. You were more in the “nothing WE can do will help anyway” mob, which at least is scientifically realistic, whatever I think of the social consciousness. Have you changed or are you just trolling
respectfully
BJ
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No, only that you looked even sillier than usual complaining about something while doing it yourself.
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http://tinyurl.com/ncqudu
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So its hot in June and cold in January in the North. Who’d have thought?
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Anyone thought of environment and social and economic protest using loud hailers to protest outside Corporate offices, the stock exchange etc – if it’s an accepted form of protest (despite the inconvenience for those watching tennis for an hour or more), why should it be a problem elsewhere? If it is a problem elsewhere, why – it’s the same right of protest and the same inconvenience to others?
Or is there some right of capitalist ownership of property that limits right of protest by workers and environmentalists?
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The dirty fncking hippies were right… this has GOT to be seen.
http://caraxcineveritas.blogspot.com/2009/12/dirty-fing-hippies-were-right.html
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Now it’s the dirty f@#*ing agrarians who are right!
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The history of the ‘Ady Gil’ was brief.
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Bro.
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/how-acts-failed-coup-went-down/
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This is why there is immense distrust of climate science and the media.
http://tinyurl.com/yhpma69
So the headlines state: “Hottest Decade”
but the devil is in the details….
“Doubts are being raised about the significance of new figures showing the past decade has been New Zealand’s warmest on record.
Average national temperatures over the past decade were just a few hundredths of a degree Celsius higher than in the 1980s, the previous warmest…..Blue Skies Weather forecaster Tony Trewinnard said it was doubtful a few hundredths of a degree was such a statistically significant amount on which to base such statements.”
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This is why there is immense distrust of climate science and the media.
What does that have to do with “distrust of climate science”? Media yes, but what’s new.
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This is where Sue Bradford (beneficiaries) Keith Locke (refugees/ civil liberties) and Catherine Delahunty (tangata whenua) are needed:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Refugees-driven-from-their-new-home-by-neighbours/tabid/423/articleID/136459/Default.aspx
In Sues books there are no bad beneficiaries (“blame the system…. fight!”)
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It seems the New Zealand Herald has found a way to afford the lowering of the top rate of income tax down to the company tax rate (which costs around $1.5B pa) – increase tax on smokers.
It argues that only 1B of the 1.6B cost of smoking is gathered by tax – and so essentially makes the case for user pays (presumably this means taxes on sugar and fat known to cause diabetes and heart problems – which could find the other the other 1B they would need).
No doubt some researcher would note that it is Maori women who smoke most and that it is those on lower incomes most likely to “afford” the cheap sugar and fat ladden foods – so this is a transfer of money from the have nots to the haves for the good of the “health of the poor” (and at no cost to those on higher incomes) and the “performance of the wider economy” (if you believe in trickle down theory).
Strange how do gooding PC comes back into fashion when it’s to service the cuase of lower income taxes on the top earners of the country.
Note
1 the tobacco tax is already 70% of the price and it usually goes as high as only 80% in other countries with higher taxes – the Herald suggests a much more radical user pays rate at over 100%.
2 The MP is supporting the increased tobacco tax and presumably they have been asked to support this form of financing to afford any increased costs under whanau ora – though I doubt the Herald would support it if was on this ground, unless most was to go to cutting the top rate of tax and only a small portion to whanau ora. It’s interesting how the National Party and MP find common ground.
(on ETS – we got really bad legislation subsidising business in return for protection of iwi commerical interests and a few trinkets of subsidy to those in poorly insulated houses).
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Beware the thaw of the permafrost.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8437703.stm
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The tailor looks around for a new thread, generally speaking.
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The best article I’ve seen on that is here.
It’s the arctic oscillation. It’s at the most extremely negative level ever measured, which means arctic weather has come to the USA and Europe, while the arctic itself is much, much warmer than usual this December.
It’s a lovely example of the whole climate debate/issue.
1) This is the most extreme arctic oscillation ever measured. But measurements only go back 50 years – so it’s possible is could be a “natural” extreme.
2) It looks like this sort of thing was more common in the warmer Paleocene.
3) As far as I can tell, no-one’s models include or predicted this. Yet now that it happens, it becomes obvious that it’s important.
Best, it’s an example of how our “natural” climate is a result of many complex interactions of various systems – and a system can switch into a quite different state with huge effects. Baffin Island was 8 degrees warmer than average in December – imagine what it’d mean if NZ or the UK was 8 degrees warmer or cooler than average one month.
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Icehawk – yes, it’s the best example to be used to further the argument of both sides (though one is shallow
I was speaking yesterday, with a erudite visitor from London who was in no doubt that climate change to the warmer was responsible for the freezing of Britain.
The weather in Southland (cool, cloudy, electrical storms and rain) is similarly feeding opinions of both parties here in our own isles.
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Frog – have you expired?
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Alive and kicking, no pun intended. But fly, it is summertime and Parliament is in recess until 9 Feb. This is the one time of the year when both MPs and amphibians get the chance for an extended break and we are all having one. But never fear, you will notice increased activity from next week, working back up to normal late in January.
In the meantime, I grant you a thread of your choice. Just say the topic!
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Cripes!
Good to hear that you are not languishing in a rapidly evaporating puddle somewhere Frog.
I reckon … Protest!
We’ve had the racket at the tennis and the ‘Earthrace’ is chilling out on the Antarctic seabed – how about we post about that and see if anyone cares for the players and their issues. Personally, I find the response from our Government to the sinking of a New Zealand registered ship to be gutless and typical of the National Party’s twisted priorities and the excuses put foward by the anti-Sea Shepherd/greenies/protesters crowd very pale – do we make a stand against the slaughter of whales or not?
How do you think that might fly, Frog
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It will fly, fly! (but probably not until tonight when I should have more time.)
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Cold up north? try this…
Colourful Victorian writer Lady Barker, born Mary Anne Stewart in Jamaica in 1830, lived in New Zealand, England, India, South Africa, Mauritius, Australia and Trinidad. She married twice, had six sons, crossed the Atlantic 15 times, survived cholera and earthquakes in Jamaica, and was almost ship wrecked in the Indian Ocean. Lady Barker produced 18 books based on her travels and experiences. Among them were “Station Life in New Zealand” (1870) and its sequel “Station Amusements in New Zealand” (1873). Both books were based on her three-year experience of living in New Zealand in the 1860s running Steventon, a Canterbury sheep farm on the banks of the Selwyn River, with her second husband Frederick Broome.
In “Station Life in NZ” Lady Barker describes in August 1867 “snow 6 to 9 feet deep in places, 90% of lambs lost, 4 days of very severe snow falling, followed by massive flood.” After that great 1867 snowstorm, through which they lost 4,000 out of 7,000 sheep, Frederick sold his interest in Steventon and returned with Lady Barker to England in December the following year.
Travel forward 36 years now to 1903, and to another book, The Cyclopedia of NZ. We read “In the winter of 1903 the weather at Arrowtown was of a very severe type, and the temperature is said to have receded to a point 28 degrees below zero. This extreme cold resulted in the destruction of the whole of the gum trees, and a considerable number of pine trees; a loss experienced generally throughout the Lake district, where the ruin of so many groves of handsome trees very much modified the picturesque ness, not only of Arrowtown, but also of Queenstown, and the scenery on the roads in the district. In Middlemarch the winter of 1903 will long be remembered as an exceptionally cold season; the temperature registered at Middlemarch on the 17th of July of that year was 13 degrees below zero.”
In our time travel adventure let’s jump forward another 36 years to 1939. As described in Tephra Magazine, June 2003 “Probably the worst storm in NZ in the last hundred years occurred during winter of 1939 when snow fell the length and breadth of the country from June through to August. On 31 July the lighthouse keeper at Cape Maria van Dieman, at the top of the North Island, reported snow falling at the lighthouse. A few days earlier it snowed in Dargaville and snow lasted on the hills behind Kaikohe for several hours. In Auckland, snow fell just before dawn 27 July sticking to clothes of people who were about such as milkmen and policemen. 5cm of snow lay on the summit of Mt Eden, Bombay Hills shone white most of the morning and in the Clevedon hills snow lasted into the afternoon and numerous snowball fights took place between people who had never seen snow before.”
Come forward another 36 years. The New Zealand Journal of Ecology 1; 81-83 states “Winter 1974 was unusually wet, winter 1975 was the coldest for many years and summer 1975-76 was wet and unusually cold”. In the previous year, a severe snowstorm in Canterbury and N Otago on 5 and 6 August 1973 had resulted in heavy losses of stock.
The next 36 years lands us in this year, and again an extra cold winter. Why these 36-year jumps? Because 36 years is the Sun’s Tide, or more technically the repeatability of the same transit position of what astronomers call the Solar System Barycentre. This means that if you take the orbits of the planets of our solar system and average their centres of gravity to find out their focus, you get a shifting point that swings from one Sun’s radius beyond the Sun across to one Sun’s radius on the other side, crossing the centre of the Sun every 36 years. This ebbing and flowing tide of extra and less electromagnetism is regular.
The Moon, our nearest celestial neighbour, acting as one of the cosmic planets orbiting the Sun, is tuned to this tide and in turn influences weather events and tides on planet Earth as to a 36-38-year multiple, determining the repeatability of seasons and tides every 18-19 years and of droughts every 9 years. Divide that in two and we find that the Southern Oscillation Index which is close to a 4.5-yr cycle. It is now becoming widely accepted that the SOI leads to El Nino/La Nina conditions that in turn drive ocean temperatures, wind directions and climate fluctuations.
Because of the SSB it is easy to plot 36-38 yearly repeats of severe weather events. There are plenty of good examples if we choose to look for them. The 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could have been the return of either 1965’s Hurricane Betsy and/or 1969′s Hurricane Camille, the worst calamities that far recorded on the Eastern Seabord, and Camille in turn was the most significant event there since the 1933 Chesapeake Bay Disaster, each a 36-yr jump. In this part of the world 2006′s Cyclone Larry was 36 years after 1970′s Cyclone Ada, and 2006′s Cyclone Monica was 18 years (half of 36) after 1988′s Cyclone Bola. In 2006 a severe Canterbury winter cold snap was possibly the revisiting of the remarkably similar 1969 winter cold snap. In 2004 the world witnessed the Asian tsunami quake. It was the biggest in the area for 36 years. In 1968 a huge earthquake had registered 8.3mag near Sumatra.
Perhaps then, this does not bode well for winter of 2010, which looks rather frighteningly like the winter of 1939 returning. Temperatures in the world are always tied to solar activity. Without solar radiation, which means heat from the Sun, the ground is not warmed. If the ground is not warmed then neither is the air above the ground, which only gets its heat from the ground below. The air cannot warm itself, and nothing in the air can warm itself (which rules out carbon dioxide) anymore than traces of impurity floating about in the sea can raise ocean temperatures. Without warmth coming from the Sun there is less evaporation, which means less likelihood of rain in the warmer seasons.
For the first half of next year a drought is on the cards for N Otago. Was there a drought 36 years ago in 1974? Many Canterbury farmers will recall that there was. How about 36 years back to 1939? The New Zealand record for a dry period still belongs to Marlborough and their 71-day dry period finishing on 19 April 1939. In 1939 the sunspot count was much less than that of warmer years like 1982, 1988, 1990-1991 and 1999-2000. The 1939 sunspot number was about a third less than for 1938, which some have already compared to 2009.
Because we are not gods we cannot guarantee future outcomes. We imagine what makes us human might be a special ability to remember, recognize patterns and use them to predict. Accordingly we collect stories of our own experiences and we are avid readers of the lives and adventures of others. From historical accounts comes an awareness of cycles. North Otago is facing a 6-month drought, with relief rains not due til next June/July. Canterbury may be into sub 5deg minimums in the middle of next February; an early descent into autumn. In some parts of the country March southwesterlies may make it the coldest March in 50 years. April may be the coldest April in half a century. In May unusual cold might burn kiwifruit vines, and hail and snow do damage to kiwifruit orchards. June brings severe frosts in Central Otago. August may see exceptional snow storms and squalls. In September Christchurch may experience the heaviest snowfall since 1945, with maximums perhaps up to 10deg below normal. October’s unusual cold means spring is slow to start. Thousands of recently shorn sheep in Hawkes Bay and Manawatu may die from cold. January 2011 could be bringing cool, cloudy and wet weather, especially to the east coast. It might not be a bad idea to prepare ourselves for next year when and if Lady Barker’s winter revisits.
Ken Ring
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That’s amazing piffle.
That the weather could be effected by wierd solar magnetic field effects because of tidal effects on the sun is highly implausible but not outright impossible. I won’t believe it without statistical correlations and a better physical explanation (yes, I want correlation & plausible causation) rather than anecdotal evidence, but I’ll accept it’s possible.
However: invoking some second-order effect due to the moon is just silly.
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