More dim bulbs
Yesterday I posted on John Key being named “Dim bulb of the week” by the San Francisco Examiner. Continuing with a dim bulb theme – let’s talk about Edison Hour, as it is explained to us by a budding genius from ACT…
Environment
science
Wind power is (too) successful?
You sometimes have to wonder about headline writers sometimes (including myself). But take a look at this one from Bloomberg.com, a site with […]
Gluckman’s apology for National’s science package shredded
Peter Gluckman is easily one of New Zealand’s most over-rated, under-examined public figures. Although little more than a corporate frontman out to extract as many […]
UK coalition good for climate
The Conservative/ Lib Dem alliance is good news for the climate, with the coalition already stating its committment to a low carbon, “eco-friendly economy”. Will Key show any of the same vision next week?
Science fights back
A recent open letter from 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences (including 11 Nobel laureates) calls for “an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues …, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them”.
Nats partially undo their cuts to R&D
The Herald editorial is rightly damning of the government’s lacklustre approach to science funding. The ‘new’ money is a trickle, barely replacing last year’s cuts. A crucial difference between Labour and National has always been that Labour invests in the long-term success of the country while National makes short-term wealth grabs for the ruling elite.
Schedule 4 back-down won’t solve the problem
If, as seems increasingly likely, the Government drops its plans to desecrate the best of schedule 4 land, will it be cause for celebration? In a word, no. Kathy at Greenpeace weblog examines Brownlee and his wet dreams
My cellphone isn’t made of gold
The Nats and miners have this weird freeloader argument. ‘Those protesters are hypocrites. Their cell phones and ipods and cars all use mined products. They should support us mining’. They won’t be mining needed industrial minerals. But what’s under Paparoa? Dirty coal. What’s under Coromandel and Barrier? Gold. which is nearly all used for jewellery and ‘investment’.
Nats plan to subsidise greenhouse polluters
National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.
Climate change deniers wallets threatened
Apparently climate scientist Michael Mann has threatened legal action* against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over their video “Hide the Decline.†This used the comment from the “climategate†emails to portray a dishonest and slanderous picture of Mann. The video has been heavily promoted by climate change deniers and conservative groups, news outlets and blogs internationally. Several conservative NZ bloggers promoted the video.
Looks like the loony CCDs have exhausted the toleration of some climate scientists.
Labour to restore democracy in Canterbury
Last month, the Government abolished the democratically-elected Canterbury Regional Council known as Environment Canterbury. Not only were the current elected officials booted out, Cantabarians were denied their right to elect the next council in the upcoming local body elections. Now, Labour has pledged to restore democracy to Canterbury.
Volcanoes and climate change
The eruption of the volcano under Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland is an example of what we can expect more of due to climate change. Vulcanism is expected to increase as ice caps and glaciers melt. An eruption has a cooling effect, due to the sulfur dioxide thrown into the air and, in Eyjafjallajokull’s case, all the grounded planes. But don’t count on volcanoes to save us from ourselves.
The Eyjafjallajökull opportunity
European air travel has been grounded for four days and there is no end in sight. What will be the effect of further prolonged disruption? What if the eruption lasts a year or more? Can the current crisis be turned into a constructive opportunity for rail?
Jones and CRU exonerated by parliamentary inquiry
We were off-air last weekend, so this story got missed.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report into the disclosure of climate data by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has just been released.
Turns out that ‘climategate’ was just a pile of hot air and selective story telling by the denialist industry. Wasn’t that unexpected? Yeah right.
Facts don’t matter
Anyone who has been involved in debating issues has probably come to suspect that facts don’t matter. Facts don’t change people’s minds, there are other, stronger influences that shape opinions.
A recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian reviews some of the psychological evidence for this fact blindness in the context of the climate change debate.
Cynical denialism will cost us all
David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.
Newspapers/govt seed scientific ignorance
My mouth dropped yesterday when I read in the Dompost an editorial lamenting the “scientifically ignorant public, suspicious of the work many scientists do”. What shocked me was the chutzpah of the lament coming from a newspaper that fuels scientific illiteracy. Today, the Dompost has yet another anti-science, illiterate climate change denier column. Meanwhile, for all its talk, Key’s Government is cutting science jobs.
Solid Energy co-opts kids to push coal
Solid Energy has been caught out commissioning future leaders to pen fantasy stories in school hours. The company is inviting high school students in key coal-mining areas to submit an essay on: “The role of coal in sustainable energy solutions for New Zealandâ€.
The climate change industry
It turns out that there is a climate change industry after all.
It is the denier industry, bought and paid for by ExxonMobil…
Greenpeace kicks coal in the Facebook
Nothing like a good IT stoush, particularly of the David and Goliath variety. Greenpeace has blown the whistle on Facebook’s use of coal […]
British poll finds fewer believe in climate change
According to a Guardian poll today, public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined with the proportion of adults who believe climate change is “definitely” a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori. Overall around nine out of 10 people questioned still appear to accept some degree of global warming.
TEDTalks 2010: Bill Gates on energy and climate change
At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for “miracles†to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he’s backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.
The mote and the beam
Climate change deniers spend a lot of time picking at motes – occasional errors in climate change science. Why is there so little attention to the beams – incorrect and dishonest denier claims and tactics?
Quick comments
The Government and the secretive Iwi Leadership Group are looking at an option where no-one owns the foreshore and seabed. It’s often forgotten […]
Ideology trumps science for the Right
Consider these results from opinion surveys of experts different areas of research, I won’t tell you the areas of research just yet: In one, […]
Poneke: If only scientists were more like god…
Poneke wrote a post about ‘climategate’. There was little about the science and more about personally attacking the authors of parts of the evidence supporting climate change. This ignores the whole basis of science, the scientific method.
On a purely personal note…
I’m totally rapt with Lyn Collie & Briar March getting the recognition for their documentary “There once was an island”. Lyn talked about it on Nightline last night.
Te-henua-e-noho. There once was an island.
Today my partner Lyn Collie will be at the world premiere at Festival International du Film Documentaire Oceanien in Tahiti of the documentary that she has been producing part-time all the time I’ve known her. My congratulations to both her, the director Briar March, and the many other people who have worked on this documentary since they started working on it in 2006 for getting it out and being seen.
A note to the idiots. Weather is not climate.
When you get a cold snap in the local weather, it means that somewhere else got somewhat warmer. Weather is a case of […]
Wishart. Research kiddie.
This is just too funny. One of Ian Wisharts sources in AirCon which he quoted from ‘verbatim’ turns out to have been a […]
A Potty Peer making money off future misery.
Gareth over at Hot-Topic has written a delightful post “Popgun for hire: A$20,000 detailing one person who is making money off climate change. […]
Great balls of fire
The Kepler Telescope was launched into space and began transmitting data last year. It’s job is to find evidence of planets outside our […]
Final thoughts for 2009: Looking at deep time
Well it is the end of 2009. So here are some final thoughts on the implications of the political shifts in the climate […]
Rising temperatures – what impact on armed conflict?
Reproduced with permission from Kotare – The Strategist This is the unspoken issue with climate change. What are the human impacts of climate […]
Those childish people of Northern European descent.
Poring around the nets while I’m on holiday is turning out to be quite interesting looking at summaries of science. I’ve been picking […]
Climate Change arguments in a GIF
Information is Beautiful recently produced the image below summarizing the various arguments between about climate change. Click on the image to see the […]