Five Prominent New Zealand Scientists Say Global Warming Is Real
Such is the title of a NIWA press release just out. (not online yet) They are reacting publicly to their inclusion in the Heartland Institute’s list of 500 scientists with doubts about climate change and global warming.
The Heartland Institute has named five New Zealanders in a list of 500 scientists whose published research is alleged to undermine support for the idea that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, largely fossil fuel burning, is warming the globe.
The five scientists concerned are Associate Professor Chris Hendy (University of Waikato), Dr Matt McGlone (Science Team Leader, Landcare Research), Dr Neville Moar (retired DSIR,), Dr Jim Salinger (Principal Scientist, NIWA) and Dr Peter Wardle (retired DSIR, FRSNZ). Other eminent scientists around the world, also included in the list of 500, have publically distanced themselves from the Heartland statement. While the Heartland Institute is entitled to make what it will of their research, these scientists strongly object to the implication that they support Heartland’s position.
The scientists fully endorse the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as to global warming and its causes. Much of their work has been concerned with climate change over many thousands of years, which, while supporting the idea that climates have fluctuated in the past and have at times been warmer than now, does not in any way weaken the conclusions reached by the IPCC about recent changes.
I posted about it here, but did not want to name names or potentially offend anyone in New Zealand whose views I was not absolutely sure about. Today they have spoken out and have joined many of the scientists on the list in distancing themselves from the sceptics camp. Some on the list cannot distance themselves because they are already dead or never existed.
Get real people. The science is in.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Will they be suing for defamation? After all, inclusion on the Heartland Institute’s list could significantly damage their scientific reputation.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
>>Get real people. The science is in.
The science appears to be drifting back out of late…..
tinyurl.com/3ulqq6
Didn’t nature just order up a 15 year break in warming?
Perhaps the IPCC should get real and admit the truth - AGW is far from settled.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Didn’t nature just order up a 15 year break in warming?
* 15?
* if I were an AGW sceptic i would ignore that study. AFAIK it shows nothing about the long term trend. In fact it assumes warming in the long term. Put it another way - if temperature are stable in the next few year and these guys are right, they will get warmer rather quickly subsequently.
The fact people are harping on about it anyway - as per your link - is probably revealing.
In other news, apparently the EMA head endoreses ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’
May 7th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
BluePeter Says:
May 7th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
> Didn’t nature just order up a 15 year break in warming?
No it didn’t. The prediction you’re presumably referring to is actually of a temporary localised cooling in the north atlantic, which will cancel out the effect of warming there while exacerbating it in other parts of the world.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Are you still trying to suggest that AGW has been settled?
Why are you so afraid of admitting the truth that it has not.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
BP - nothing is ever “settled” in science. But the probabilities and trends are consistently pointing in one direction - AGW. The IPCC only ever spoke of the likelihood of GW being anthropogenic. That likelihood is now so damn high they’re calling it a consensus. Get used to it. The science is in and will continue to come in. We’re not afraid of the science. If anything it has been consistently conservative in its forecasts for AGW and its effects. I’ll keep following the peer reviewed science, watching it evolve. You do what you like.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
>>the probabilities and trends are consistently pointing in one direction
Yes, that the earth is now cooling.
>>You do what you like
It won’t matter what you or I do or believe in relation to the climate. It won’t change a single thing.
That is the truth, ruth.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I think the point of what the NZ scientists were upset about is that their names were used to back up the claim that global warming isn’t happening. They were named as “co-authors” of the Heartland statement, which can be found here:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21978
But given that the NZ references mostly cited the DSIR, just how recent is the science they’re quoting? The DSIR has, after all, been extinct for around 20 years.
If the sceptics are twisting the science to this extent, how can we trust anything else they’re saying?
May 7th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
And Peak Oil is “a load of”… right Peter? (goes with the territory.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Bluepeter. I myself am very tired of the perhaps aptly named watermelon politics. It is true that Global Warming is often poorly understood by leftist activists who then happen to use it to push anti-corporate agendas. But it is also true that conservative think tanks have a very strong agenda on this issue and all the related political ramifications. Personally, I think blogs are a great place to go if you love an argument and a terrible way to get informed. My suspicion is that you have spent too much time engaging in blog wars and reading misinformation and countermisinformation - which, hey if thats all you’re interested in then go for it - but if you want to find out whether the IPCC is actually right, don’t go and read the heartland institute’s website. By all means consider their critiques, but first of all you should go and read the latest IPCC synthesis report, available at libraries, then apply the criticism. Once I had read the parts of the report that I was interested in, and compared those with the most credible critiques, as well as reading other associated scientific literature, I was assured of the very compelling likelyhood of AGW, and that the scientists who had compiled the reports and articles were exemplary in their methods.
Which is not to say that various extreme scenarios suggested don’t lack weight or proof. What you will find is that non-scientists take what the scientists say and apply it to their own political agenda.
Having said all that, it does seem to me that all you seem to want to do is engage in some lefty-baiting. If you want to find out hard facts, though, next time go to the most authoritative sources and work outwards.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Amen to that. Was that a knock out punch or will BP drag his bruised ego off the floor?
As for me I think there’s two things counting against BP’s position. The first is the aforementioned statistical analysis that indicates, with 90% certainty, that the AGW hypothesis is true.
The second oft ignored reason is the economic reports, such as that conducted by McKinsey, which indicated that a significant volume of carbon emissions could be cut for a positive economic return.
These are measures that are already “economically efficient” when analysed from a whole of life cost benefit perspective, but are not being implemented because of market irregularities.
E.g. many energy conservation measures make absolute economic sense in the long run, but these will never see the light of day because 35% of the population rent but the landlords don’t pay the electricity bill and so are not interested in energy conservation.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
sdonovan
Precisely. Instead of offering a subsidy to landlords - the government should allow people to capitalise their $1000 Kiwi Saver subsidy to buy and install heat pumps (and include people who cannot afford Kiwi Saver to do the same - means test this part).
May 8th, 2008 at 12:11 am
what are they going to do when they shift? rip it out & take it with them!!?
May 8th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Ahuahu, sdonovan
Lefty-baiting aside, there are numerous issues here.
Firstly, who is right? As we know, truth can come from anywhere. It does not necessarily come from the establishment and/or the majority. It doesn’t necessarily come from a UN organization set-up to push a political agenda. Is it possible that many, highly qualified scientists are wrong?
Well, yes it is.
I freely admit I cannot follow the complicated maths and physics. I sense that simplification of ideas in this space could prove misleading i.e. the hockey stick. Occams Razor tells me to tread carefully before accepting absolute outcomes/predictions in relation to complex, largely unknown systems. I do accept that the AGW argument carries a fair amount of academic weight, however, while the science remains this contentious, and it still is contentious when compared to, say, electrical engineering, then I feel no NEED to jump one way of the other. I’m happy to read, bait and discuss, and stay seated on the fence.
What is the jeopardy in this?
There is no jeopardy. If AGW is a threat, or no threat at all, what I think and do makes no difference. Some see this as just an excuse to do whatever I like, pollution wise. This is untrue. I’m betting my personal “carbon footprint” is lower than most greenies.
So my truth on AGW is: I do not know.
Secondly, if it is real, then which dire prediction do you go with? Lovelock? Gore? The IPCC? Which one of their predictions? The course of action differs greatly depending upon where one places oneself on that continuum.
So, even if I believed that AGW was a threat, I would still not support New Zealand’s emissions scheme. The negligible benefit in posturing (moral weight) would be outweighed by the (pragmatic) opportunity to use the money to mitigate effects, or address other, more pressing issues.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Well put, much better than ‘it’s a commie plot’ that others use.
What do you mean by “a UN organization set-up to push a political agenda.”?
As for tariffs/duties on carbon, it’s not only the Europeans talking about it
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=405615 . Some debate, obviously.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am
BP the Hockey Stick has been pretty much backed up by other more detailed studies and is in the latest IPCC report.
Meanwhile Heartland has been busy in Canada, mailing out 11,000 dvd’s and brochures to schools
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=528f1979-0c8e-490 0-96d5-e586ac2fc435&k=55700
… but unfortunately two of their interviewees weren’t too happy about the way they were used in the DVD:
http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-tricked-video-subjects-i n-unstoppable-solar-cycles
May 8th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Is it about science or is about political agendas? B.P. is arguing his political position and I suggest out of the sum of his experiences?!
If his experience would be that of a person in the third world in a less privileged environment he might have a very different ‘opinion’.
For me the question in the climate discussion is, who has an interest in the different positions. We have on one side the carbon/oil driven growth economies of the west and on the other side a view critics questioning the ‘way things are done around here’. Mind you this discussion is not a new one, the Greens in Germany have done this questioning for over 30 years, the Club of Rome was founded in the late 1960ties and warned the west of the dangers lying ahead…
I am not a scientist but I have common sense, looking at the population on this planet combined with the economical system in place, can only mean disaster is happening and will happen more and more frequently. And when I hear this talk about a view more degrees warming more or less, I think, lets see where we are going to be when the oil hits $200 a barrel, lets see where we are going to be when every Indian and Chinese person is ‘enjoying’ the same ‘great’ life style we are ‘enjoying’. Lets see how life on planet earth will be like with a couple more billion of us in 10 years…
( my apologies for syntax and spell, its my second language)
May 8th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Cindy
When I see “IPCC”, it has the same effect on me as, I suspect, someone saying “Heartland Institute” does on you. They are both political organizations, and neither has a natural monopoly on truth.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:51 am
# SPC Says:
May 7th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
> Precisely. Instead of offering a subsidy to landlords - the government should allow people to capitalise their $1000 Kiwi Saver subsidy to buy and install heat pumps (and include people who cannot afford Kiwi Saver to do the same - means test this part).
heat pumps and insulation really have to be built into the fabric of the house, so they have to be owned by the property owner.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:58 am
BluePeter. IPCC was not set up, as you say, to ‘push a political agenda’. I’m not denying that there are political agendas within it, but that was not the main cause behind it as you suggest. I have a sneaky suspicion that the best experience you have of the IPCC is watching parts of inconvenient truth (or such like documentaries), not liking some of the political agendas, and reading some valid critiques of it, then regressing to less valid critiques and playing the ‘devils advocate’ (so to speak, used unemotively I assure you) with less informed arguments because you, validly enough, don’t like the political agendas people are using. However, I stress, if you want to know about AGW, the IPCC synthesis report is a great place to start. Its clear, unemotive, accessible to someone with reasonable scientific literacy, and gives an excellent basis for understanding the concepts. If you find after reading parts of it that you’re not convinced, by all means apply critiques to it. But at the moment to me you sound like a fair-trade advocate who’s trying to disprove friedman and hayek by reading frogblog and salient. PS. I don’t agree with sdonovans personal niggles, I’m all about advancing general consensus, not descent into blog flamewars.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“Cindy
When I see “IPCC”, it has the same effect on me as, I suspect, someone saying “Heartland Institute” does on you. They are both political organizations, and neither has a natural monopoly on truth.”
IPCC is a major player on the subject of global warming which can’t be ignored. It can be critiqued, but you must engage with it first. It is not, primarily, the type of organisation the heartland institute is. The heartland institute is a valid type of organisation, but it doesn’t have the same status as a necessary primary source, in that the IPCC is a primary source involved, largely, in scientific research, whereas the heartland institute is largely a secondary source, involved in commentary and discussion of primary sources. Therefore, it is reasonable in a debate for AGW proponents to suggest that you are familiar with IPCC.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Frog, that is a *really* strange title, like it’s big news or something! How bout ‘Heartland are a bunch of deceitful tricksy hobbits’?
May 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am
The IPCC gets governments to come together every few years to assess the science, and have been doing so since the 80s when they were commissioned to ‘explore the possibility’ of climate change/global warming. Heartland’s “mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.”
Heartland would seem to start from a position of ‘free markets good…climate change action requires government action…government action bad! BAD!, climate change not real/is good/it’s the sun/volcanoes/not real/it’s good/…’
May 8th, 2008 at 10:25 am
The IPCC is a political lobby group.
“The Villach conference of October 1985 is widely credited with being critical to the placing of the climate change issue firmly on the international political agenda, and to the subsequent establishment of the IPCC - because at this conference the scientists concluded that the need for government action was far more urgent than they had previously thought. ”
I think Spiegel puts it well: “is odd to hear IPCC Chairman Pachauri, when asked what he thinks about Gore’s film, responding: “I liked it. It does emotionalize the debate, but it seems that it has to do that.” And when Pachauri comments on the publication of the first SPM by saying, “I hope that this will shock the governments so much that they take action,” this doesn’t exactly allay doubts as to his objectivity……The same question haunts IPCC chairman Pachauri. This week he will be in Bangkok, where the subjects of debate will be possible solutions, distribution of the burdens and the structure of the future. Pachauri will sit on the podium, follow the debate and do what he believes he has to do — be on the side of a good cause and not on the side of science.”
tinyurl.com/ywltgg
It is true The Inconvenient Truth pushed me firmly into the skeptical camp. What a load of toss these polemic political arguments are.
I will read the IPCC synthesis report.
>>a fair-trade advocate who’s trying to disprove friedman and hayek by reading frogblog and salient
I haven’t read Salient since I left University. Frogblog I see as a place, not a source of balanced information.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am
“a fair-trade advocate who’s trying to disprove friedman and hayek by reading frogblog and salient
I haven’t read Salient since I left University. Frogblog I see as a place, not a source of balanced information.” - was making an analogy… i think you get my point.
Theres no denying that there is a lot of political action in and around the IPCC. Other than it was mandated by politicians, its primary purposes have not been to create left wing agendas out of pseudoscience. But of course, one would have to read the report before you find out. Which I’m glad you’re going to do. If you find any overt politicking in there I’m keen to know.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:34 am
The IPCC is full of different countries with different ideas who spend hours arguing over the phrasing of a sentence - they have many dissenters, noteworthy ones being the US and Saudi Arabia (possibly China). *despite* all of this, here we are!
Worth noting that Gore was “broadly accurate”, regardless of whether he reckoned Katrina was because of global warming.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Aaand Heartland response to Greenpeace news release.
Who makes a list of every author in their bibliography anyway?
May 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
heh, ‘real scientists don’t complain’.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Note the positive direction of this article…
tinyurl.com/5l8vpm
“The government has been warned that it must spend all of a £1.6bn windfall on new technology to combat climate change.”
Contrast this with the NZ “hairshirt” approach…
May 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
So the businesses want the government to give R&D tax credits or what??
Assuming the answer is yes, I ’spose then the question is: which approach will reduce the NZ’s overall emissions the most for the lowest amount of money? Offsetting the excess emissions overseas or spending it on solar panels or R&D in-country? Will R&D produce only small short term progress (which will incur a commensurate penalty, of course), but ultimately large and beneficial long term impacts?
May 8th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Andrew and Kahikatea
Sure it may not be possible to take the heat pumps out (because they are installed into the house) but the current scheme offers only a partial subsidy to landlords who do not receive the benefit from the lower power bills. Thus there is not the energy saving gain we as a society need.
So the only options are either to make heat pumps compulsory for landlords (with or without the current partial subsidy), or to allow tenants a deal they would not turn down.
While people would not own their heat pump - they would obtain cheap power while they lived there (and if this is at no unaffordable cost to themselves) and they would be more likely to move into another rental with heat pumps …
Options for such deals include being able to capitalise amounts from Kiwi Saver or for those not yet in Kiwi Saver to claim a means tested full subsidy - including people (Super) on fixed incomes and some families on low incomes who own their own homes.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Is it a problem that heat pumps also provide cool air in summer, perhaps placing a new pressure on electricity generation? Would it still be better than having a less efficient heating-only appliance?
May 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I would imagine pressure on the system refers to peak demand periods, not the off peak summer months.
It would be ridiculous to say that it would be better if people had a more expensive and wasteful heating appliance they could not afford to use when they needed it during the winter months …
As for the extra use of power and extra power bill costs in running heat pumps in summer … they can be turned off. Most areas of the country do not require heat pumps during summer and even in those that do it would be for a few weeks here and there only.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Bluepeter, the IPCC is not a partisan organisation. Political, yes, but not partisan. The Heartland institute is partisan- it is composed of AGW skeptics alone. The IPCC was composed of politicians, scientists, and professionals in related fields, and even dedicated AGW skeptics, with plenty of representation for both points of view. The IPCC report was a consensus-based document where all parties had to agree to the wording, including the skeptics, yet it still concluded that global warming is anthropogenic and that it needs action within the next decade. It is a compromise document essentially, which makes its strong support that man-made generational climate change is occuring all the more surprising- which is exactly why people harp on about it.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
SPC Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
> I would imagine pressure on the system refers to peak demand periods, not the off peak summer months.
With lots of heat pumps used for cooling, and lots of farms with electricity-powered irrigation pumps, summer could easily become the peak time for electricity use. Many US states have moved from having their peak in the winter to having it in the summer for precisely that reason.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Some people will only start to act when the water is up to their necks, and hey most of us old ones will not be around anyhow when the s… hits the fan…
But I sympathise with all these fearfull, capitalists wondering how they can hang on to what they ‘have’.
Imagine the expensive Merc or Beamer sitting in the garage and getting rusted out by the saltwater, splashing around their sea side property…I feel for them, the poor sods will loose all they ‘are’…
May 8th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Ari
The organisaion has a political agenda and indulge in alarmism as a communications strategy. They say so themselves.
I therefore take their recommendations with a large grain of salt…..
May 8th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage.
Who we are they:
The IPCC is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Its constituency is made of :
The governments: the IPCC is open to all member countries of WMO and UNEP. Governments of participate in plenary Sessions of the IPCC where main decisions about the IPCC workprogramme are taken and reports are accepted, adopted and approved. They also participate the review of IPCC Reports.
The scientists: hundreds of scientists all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC as authors, contributors and reviewers.
The people: as United Nations body, the IPCC work aims at the promotion of the United Nations human development goals
Why the IPCC was created:
Climate change is a very complex issue: policymakers need an objective source of information about the causes of climate change, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences and the adaptation and mitigation options to respond to it. This is why WMO and UNEP established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988.
The IPCC is a scientific body: the information it provides with its reports is based on scientific evidence and reflects existing viewpoints within the scientific community. The comprehensiveness of the scientific content is achieved through contributions from experts in all regions of the world and all relevant disciplines including, where appropriately documented, industry literature and traditional practices, and a two stage review process by experts and governments.
Because of its intergovernmental nature, the IPCC is able to provide scientific technical and socio-economic information in a policy-relevant but policy neutral way to decision makers. When governments accept the IPCC reports and approve their Summary for Policymakers, they acknowledge the legitimacy of their scientific content.
The IPCC provides its reports at regular intervals and they immediately become standard works of reference, widely used by policymakers, experts and students. The findings of the first IPCC Assessment Report of 1990 played a decisive role in leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was opened for signature in the Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992 and entered into force in 1994. It provides the overall policy framework for addressing the climate change issue. The IPCC Second Assessment Report of 1995 provided key input for the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Third Assessment Report of 2001 as well as Special and Methodology Reports provided further information relevant for the development of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC continues to be a major source of information for the negotiations under the UNFCCC.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
kahikatea
“With lots of heat pumps used for cooling, and lots of farms with electricity-powered irrigation pumps, summer could easily become the peak time for electricity use. Many US states have moved from having their peak in the winter to having it in the summer for precisely that reason.”
For New Zealand, no way - only some areas of the country use power generated irrigation and most would not use heat pumps. Even in the USA this only occurs in a few regions. We have a national power generation network and there is no way this would happen here.
I wonder of those who operate heat pumps diring summer do so apart from a few weeks only?
May 9th, 2008 at 8:44 am
greed n power
The way IPCC describe themselves on their own website is irrelevant.
Ref. the Villach Conference, 1985…..
May 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
@ bp
Good morning to you…
Thank you for letting me know that you do not find that relevant. I am at a loss of what are you trying to prove? that the planet is not heating up? or that if it does it is not caused by human activities?
My point to you to ponder: What difference does it make, if the planet is heating up to the total disregard of human activities to the planets eco system as a whole, and I am not just talking about air pollution. Example the Canterbury plains water scheme…when the people of Chch are drinking the cows poops in their drinking water and fronterra has sold out to China as one of their protein suppliers, we will all be so much better of ???? Who is really benefitting?
The Question in all these discussions is in my mind about one issue:
IS UNCHECKED CAPITALISM IN FORM OF OUR GLOBAL MARKET APPROACH DOING US OR OUR CHILDREN ANY FAVOUR IN THE LONG RUN…
I do suggest to you, dear bp, to check out Jane Kelsey’s “Reclaiming the future” and let me know what you think about Fig.6 bottom of page 388 ‘trends in income inequality in NZ’
May 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
It’s not up to me to prove anything. It is up to the AGW advocates to prove their theory. “What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite”.
Yes, capitalism benefits more people, more so than the alternatives tried thus far. History shows this to be true. Suggest you read Milton…
May 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Yeah…
Are you actually going to read the Synthesis report? admirable if so
May 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@ bp
It is all in the eyes of the beholder…Like Naomi Klein…on the above mentioned gentleman’s point of view… free market policies of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have risen to prominence in countries such as Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin, the United States (for example in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and the privatization of Iraq’s economy under the Coalition Provisional Authority not because they were democratically popular, but because they were pushed through while the citizens of these countries were in shock from disasters or upheavals.
The ideas of Milton are the ideolgical back up of the US imperialsm, just as Hitler had Nietsche or Stalin had Marx…the tragedy in following these ideologies blindly is that it prevents any further development on a local level, catering for the people of a country with it’s cultural heritage.
I do have to say on this note that I prefer fish n chips to Maccers…lol
May 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am
BP
It IS up to you to prove something. It is YOUR lot who are pumping vast amounts of CO2 into the air and altering atmospheric and ocean chemistry.
That’s YOUR experiment and we’ve been measuring the results and pointing out the possible consequences and asking nicely for you to stop since it is scientifically unacceptable to conduct an experiment without a control and the self control exhibited by the polluting b****ds who are so insistent on continuing is similar to that exhibited by a heroin addict in need of a fix.
Your response is that STOPPING the experiment is an experiment?? That WE need to prove something?
You are joking of course.
respectfully
BJ
May 11th, 2008 at 11:23 am
My lot? Who are my lot?
I’m saying prove the earth is warming, and if it is, that this will have catastrophic effects, and that we can influence it by taxing it. Until such time, I’m a skeptic.
I’m sorry that annoys you so….
On the brighter side of life….
tinyurl.com/6c7uuj
“Energy company Sunrgi recently announced an astounding new solar system that will break our grids free from the fossil fuel lockdown. Their Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics promise a low-cost, high-efficiency system with an incredible projected energy pricing of 5 cents per kilowatt. This breakthrough puts solar on par with the cost of coal, natural gas, and other non-renewable energy sources.”
May 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
BJ,
Yet again we have the same question being asked and AGAIN we have to prove something.
What BP is asking is not whether there is climate change (not just warming) but if TAXATION is the answer. Especially the taxation regime to be implemented in New Zealand.
A taxation regime were some 1billion dollars per annum will be shipped to Russia for what? Taxation without representation comes to mind.
It is now actually beyond science, it is economics . Can New Zealland sustain that capital outflow?
Another question that nobody, but nobody will answer is
“Can we maintain the Earth temperature within the ideal +-2C range through the control of carbon emmisions”
And try to answer this one
“Who will decide if the temperature should rise a little to enable people in Greenland or Iceland a better standard of living. At the cost of Australia who would like a cooler climate as they are in constant droughts if the temperature is raised.”
It is beyond the argument as to whether global climate change is happening and has gone to; what the answers are to control it and who has to power to turn up or down the controls.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Horsesh!t BP…
I don’t even care if the earth is warming here. I didn’t mention warming. That’s ONE of the consequences to be sure.
Prove that pumping Carbon into the Ocean and Atmosphere will have no effect on future generations of life on this planet.
The risk management of the “skeptical” folks , and if you’re here arguing their arguments you;d better expect to be lumped together with them. Is laughable. Lets examine that one one more time. It never gets answered….
If we reduce our non-renewable consumption we are preparing for the oil peaks and insulating ourselves from systemic shocks when the oil prices hit $200/bbl and higher. That price is in reach now.
If we reduce our non-renewable consumption we also reduce our carbon emissions and reduce the potential problems of the future that you argue aren’t happening and we have to prove. We don’t have to prove it… that’s YOUR issue. The fact is that there is a very definite risk that it will happen and reducing the carbon reduces the risk.
If we’re wrong and there is no such thing as peak oil and no such thing as global warming… our kids still have oil to burn and we’ve lost a little opportunity cost. The probability of being wrong on both counts is as near zero as I care to imagine… but that’s the nut of it.
———- The flip side (your lot’s argument) ————
We don’t reduce anything, we burn everything we can dig up as fast as we can so we can better compete with some people on the other side of the planet who are doing that same thing.
If you’re wrong and oil peaks and the oceans rise you can write off human civilization on this planet. The wars, starvation and human misery for our children can easily hit a scale of misery currently unimaginable. Skeptical you may be but I don’t like the chances they are taking with MY children’s future.
No mistake in wording there. The activities of the business as usual community are offensive as hell. It is THAT community that is changing the planet… and the changes are undeniable. The only question is what (if anything) will limit the consequences.
BJ
May 11th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
You’re bundling the arguments together.
So I’ll unbundle them.
a) Energy independence is one thing. AGW is another. There are good reasons for energy independence irrespective of wether AGW is real or not.
b) We may reduce carbon emissions, but so what? Even if AGW is real, we, in New Zealand, don’t make a difference in terms of C02 output.
c) There is a cost to reducing carbon emissions. If b), then this cost is unjustified. It will cause economic damage, which means people will suffer.I sense you underestimate the cost of decimating our economic well-being. It is not trivial.
d) You’re still under the assumption we can do something about it. If we cut emissions, will this really result in climate stabilization?
May 11th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Ugh. I’m sorta interested in b) - sounds like if we divided the world into blocs of 4 million (and figured out who was emitting the most etc..), then no one would have to take any responsibility because they ‘can’t make a difference’…?
Also interested in your comment BP “I’m saying prove the earth is warming, and if it is…”
If? How would you qualify this?
May 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
BP
The first thing you did was you ignored that the Business-as-usual idiots are the ones who are changing things.
You asserted in essence, that WE had to prove that not changing things would cause things not to change. That has nothing to do with the bundling-unbundling and has everything to do with who actually has something to prove.
Gerrit - I did not assert nor respond that we should send money to Russia. I reserve the right to spend money on fixing things here, (a personal not a Green Party position) but I will be damned sure to take that money out of the hides of the greedy-guts who kept us from doing what we needed to do a decade ago when it would have been easier.
“Can we maintain the Earth temperature within the ideal +-2C range through the control of carbon emmisions” - I wasn’t here. We can’t do that anymore. We might have managed IF we started when Kyoto was first signed and the US had come on board… we didn’t then and we can’t now. Too-far-gone and too politically unacceptable. Nobody will go first, means nobody goes at all. We might however, manage to keep the change below +4 degrees…. and wouldn’t that be worthwhile instead of going all the way to +6 … or higher? .
“Who will decide if the temperature should rise a little to enable people in Greenland or Iceland a better standard of living. At the cost of Australia who would like a cooler climate as they are in constant droughts if the temperature is raised.”
I pointed at the who-will-decide issue months ago. Not an issue if the rule is simply not to change things. It is however, at the heart of this issue. If we manage to find a way to control the thermostat then we create a new “power” exercised by our governments and a nightmare for libertarians everywhere. We don’t HAVE that control, nor any other. Moot point. Politically we have not the ability to reach for the control. This is one of my reasons for advocating space based mirrors and power sources. I reckon that they don’t require difficult social and political adjustments.
Nobody is doing anything about it though and changes to the ocean chemistry are as threatening as the temperature that is only one symptom. Try keeping fish for a while - the pH of the tank is critical.
BP again… We don’t have to reduce our carbon emissions because we’re too small to make a difference. That’s got to be one of the most selfish, nasty and childish arguments in the lot… the worst of course was the US saying that they wouldn’t unless the third world and emerging nations did.. Moral hazard isn’t just about Bear-Stearns bailouts. This is your best argument and it is predicated on a philosophy that I find morally reprehensible. My responsibilities are not predicated on the actions of others. My responsibility to make my part of the effort to save the planet is not affected by the lack of responsibility of others elsewhere.
You ascribe enormous economic hardships to this change, but the change itself is only to make carbon emissions cost money (as a tax) and to offset the increased tax by reducing taxes in other places…. Are you telling me the market is inefficient and stupid? I could believe that over time, but not as relates to an immediate cost.
You just don’t want to pay the price. That’s all it is. You want to argue that it makes no sense to take AGW seriously and do something about it even though you like energy independence? The unbundling of AGW from peak oil and energy independence is a mistake. Nothing has just one result and the benefits of acting are not confined to b)…..
What is actually “our fair share” of effort is important to consider too. How to count the emissions bovine methane where it displaces even larger emissions elsewhere is an interesting question… but doing nothing because you assert (without proof) that we cannot make any difference is simply and entirely unacceptable.
Who will make the 0.0001% contribution to the problem that actually triggers the arctic methane to be released and tips the climate over?
The point to what is not known is that it is NOT known. The people making changes to the atmosphere and the climate are the ones who have to justify their actions. All we are doing is telling them to stop… “Stop or my mom will shoot”… and Maw Nature doesn’t miss.
BJ
May 11th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
“divided the world into blocs of 4 million” Something very similar was done for US CO2 emissions. Turns out the highest per capita emissions are in rural areas. Therefore it’s farmers who are responsible for climate change!
Or maybe its simply that the USA’s rural regions are feeding the urban regions and its the eaters not the farmers who are to blame for global warming and ultimately its the eaters who must pay the price for stopping global warming. Internationally that’ll save our bacon too.
May 11th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
>>That’s got to be one of the most selfish, nasty and childish arguments in the lot
Perhaps we should have burned coal up to 1990, then stopped. Hurrah! C02 emissions halved by NZ!
New Zealand didn’t cause the problem. It cannot fix it. We have only one option, and that is to mitigate. I know that some people feel we must do SOMETHING, but I don’t think posturing at the UN and degrading our economy achieves ANYTHING.
May 11th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Enjoyed this article, referring to Gordon “I clearly didn’t take econmics is school” Ramsey.
“At the heart of much of the environmental movement is a fundamental misanthropy which sees people as the problem, not the answer.
It is an apocalyptic model which should be rejected. The idea that resources are finite and that humans are principally consumers is an argument that, while plausible, is entirely specious. It ignores the truism that people are the ultimate resource. The entire march of civilisation has been about manmade solutions to environmental problems; be they disease, natural disaster or famine. Far from simply consuming resources, mankind has devised increasingly ingenious ways of producing them”
tinyurl.com/4d26gv
May 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Unfortunately BP, people ARE the problem and Ramsey, whatever his actual credentials, is on this point being quite stupid. I will google him later…
The only way more people become a “resource” for the future is in the sense of Soylent Green. The idea that humans “produce” resources somehow is quite EXACTLY wrong in terms of thermodynamics, physics and the long run… had he used the word “extract” he would have been correct. Life processes in EVERY form increase the flow of entropy in the universe. People get confused about time scales here as well. That seems to be the most serious source of confusion.
Whether the future is actually apocalyptic or merely inconvenient for future generations, is one of the questions for which this generation will be creating an answer.
I don’t like the answer the business-as-usual group have manufactured for my children. Nor the way they “manufacture” dissent. I am not misanthropic so much as an instinctive balancer. The inputs and outputs have to balance. Moreover, they WILL balance no matter what you or Ramsey say. Mother Nature will put an end to our “perpetual growth” meme as surely as the sun rises. The more balanced WE are the more likely our civilization will survive the balancing.
BJ
May 11th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Well, I agree with you that nature will have the last laugh.
Gordon Ramsey is a UK chef. He is advocating banning restaurants which serve “out of season” produce. His protectionist nonsense, often perpetrated by greenies and heavily subsidised yet useless euro farmers, would drive up food prices and decimate efficient agricultural producers, especially in the third world.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hi everyone, on this sunny Sunday afternoon in Christchurch.
I just wanted to share a letter with you I send to Mr Keys office.
I suppose that most of these discussions evoke very similar thoughts in my mind.
I think that if people cut back consumption, it will have beneficial effect in most areas. On a human level it might cause people to relate to one another instead of relating to things( Erich Fromm has extensive thoughts on that in ‘To have or to be”)
…The letter…I love some feed back…
Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:35:19 +1200
To:
Conversation: conversation
Subject: conversation
Dear John Key
I am looking forward to a man…
A man who is used to measuring the ’standard of living’ by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is ‘better off’ than a man who consumes less.
A man who supports the modern industry that requires so much input and accomplishes so little output in real terms. With ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, someone who does represent progress: and a denial of wisdom.
A man who suggests that general evidence of material progress would suggest that the modern private enterprise system is–or has been–the most perfect instrument for the pursuit of personal enrichment. That the modern private enterprise system ingeniously employs the human urges of greed and envy as its motive power, but manages to overcome the most blatant deficiencies of laissez-faire by means of peddling ‘legal’ drugs and offering ‘games’ for it’s citizens.
A man with a degree in greed and envy to demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, total disregard that the type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment.
A man who will use the political process to deter the occurrence of democratic consensus by using the best smoke screen available, consisting of bureaucrats and committees. Who will only pursued one goal and that is to enable the rich to get richer and more influential.
Let’s hope the king’s feasters will toss the occasional bone to the poor before they get to desperate and take what was theirs in the first place…
How I wish you would have been born with a conscience…
Yours
—— End of Forwarded Message
May 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
With all due respect, that is the biggest pile of fatuous undergraduate Marxist bull**** I’ve seen posted on here. And that’s saying something
No doubt it will be contribute to a Christchurch landfill shortly…
May 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
BP,
Marx didn’t take finite environmental limits into account either. Like Keynes, Marx thought that capitalism’s tremendous productivity growth would do away with the need for government and the market exchange system as the world would emerge into a post-scarcity society.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
A Chef ?! Soylent Green is probably more relevant than I thought
May 11th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
BJ,
If global warming is “Too-far-gone and too politically unacceptable.” what is the point of curtailing carbon emmisions.?
What is the point of carbon taxation and trading?
There is none if your assertion is correct.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Thank you for your detailed and objective feed back. I would love to hear your opinions on our great ‘National Fuehrer’ to be…the defender of the poor and deprived, the Robin Hood of the globalisation jungle, the puppet of the Yankee Neo Cons, our very own Jonny…Hurray - hollow man…
May 11th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Gerrit
You asked if we could in any likelihoot stabilize at <= +2 degrees. I don’t see how we can do so. That was my answer. However less than 4 degrees is possible and for some people and places…. survivable..
I think that as things start showing up that put the lie to the idea that we can grow perpetually, the responses in much of the world will get a lot more direct.
Of course I DO couple things… for me no action or inaction is isolated. Lowering carbon emissions and pursuing energy independence are linked to the long term economic survival of the country as well as the sustainability of its civilization.
Also… there are the philosophical imperatives. Unlike some, I do not intend to throw up my hands and surrender to whatever fate will bring if I do not try. If I do not try then by definition I CANNOT succeed.
This is where I take serious issue with the attitude that BP has offered. It is both greedy and hopeless at the same time. Morally repugnant to me. Perhaps I am too old and have retained the notion that “responsibility is something you take”.
I can’t force BP to accept responsibility and I cannot “make” him (or anyone) responsible. I can take responsibility for myself. I have a responsibility to try., Perhaps that sense of responsibility does not extend to any nation anywhere. If so we are in more trouble than I hoped.
respectfully
BJ
May 12th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I’m a pragmatist.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
BP,
You say you want people to prove AGW to you.
Well, I can’t prove it to you by showing you the science because you claim you don’t understand that stuff. I know Fred Singer’s AGW-skepticisim is full of bull because I took what he said and did the maths… but if you can’t follow the maths I don’t see how I can show you that
Or you could accept the word of the experts. Oh, but you assert that the whole scientific establishment can be wrong about this. So you won’t accept the word of experts.
It seems as long as anyone publishes on the web claiming that the science is contentious, you’ll claim that the science really is contentious, and so you’ll remain a skeptic.
Do you take the same approach to creationism and evolution? There’s no more (or less) scientific contention there.
i
May 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
“Can we maintain the Earth temperature within the ideal +-2C range through the control of carbon emmisions”
Technically, yes. No problem. Not even very expensive. Countries that have aggressively pursued lower energy use (like the Danes) are not starving compared to those (like the US) that have not.
Actually? Depend on whether nations co-operate on this. Which means probably not.
But IF we act quickly to curve carbon emissions THEN we could be looking at only +2C over the next 80 years.
If we don’t act to curve emissions then we go outside the IPCC’s prediction range by 2100.