Whoops! Your interest is overwhelming

I apologise to our overseas friends, supporters and casual visitors who came here over the past 24 hours or so wanting to know the latest development in our long-running national temperature saga but instead found a story so hard to follow it was worse than finding footprints through a coal mine at night while wearing sunglasses.

I’m sorry we let you down

Our local supporters found it informative, but they’ve been following events more closely. For those who haven’t been so close it was very frustrating.

It was my fault. I completely misjudged the interest this story would generate. It was especially regrettable since I’m keen to encourage investigations into climate organisations around the world and this hardly gives a good example of how to proceed.

Your presence here has been a tremendous boost to everyone involved; the web traffic stats have gone through the roof and we’re grateful for your visits. It’s all helping to spread important anti-consensus messages where just a short time ago there were almost none.

But not only was the story difficult to penetrate, the two most important supporting documents weren’t yet available online. I thought it would be a simple matter of posting them on this web site, and what would it matter if they were posted a few hours after releasing the article (who would notice? — FAIL!) but the legal advisor said keep it on the originator’s official site. It took precious time for messages to go between the people involved and the files were posted late this morning (when I wasn’t here to announce it).

Pretty busy right now

On a personal note: I must earn a living, so most mornings I’m away from the home office. It means that for six to eight hours a day there’s no response on the web site. Also, the end of the university semester is a busy time, with students wanting their reports and papers edited, which takes up another two to six hours per day, so I have little time to spare on this most enjoyable climate pastime. If I am slow to respond, please forgive me; I will get around to answering you, but perhaps not quickly.

This climate work is at the moment a pastime; I would prefer it to be a full-time activity but I haven’t found a sponsor…

The next major job is to write a report on the temperature saga in a way that lets our overseas brothers and sisters share in the excitement. It won’t be tomorrow or even the day after, but it will arrive and it will be something to look forward to, I promise.

It will be as thrilling as any story about a disputed national temperature record, strange decisions in a public agency, unpaid sleuths fighting bureaucracy, ancient feuds, simmering tensions, budget blowouts, questions in the Parliament and conspiracies that circle the globe.

Who could miss it? Stay tuned.

Either that, or read all the previous posts, plus those Statements of Claim and Defence and write a story for us. We’ll post it if it’s good enough.

Cheers.

– Richard

Visits: 42

6 Thoughts on “Whoops! Your interest is overwhelming

  1. Richard C on 08/10/2010 at 6:43 pm said:

    “I’m sorry we let you down
    Our local supporters found it informative, but they’ve been following events more closely. For those who haven’t been so close it was very frustrating.”

    No, you didn’t let anyone down. You are at the forefront globally in this case and you cannot let external pressures (no matter how eminent) damage the prospects of a favourable outcome.

    If that means a communications glitch here and there – so be it.

    “Pretty busy right now
    On a personal note: I must earn a living,”

    Exactly.

  2. val majkus on 08/10/2010 at 11:05 pm said:

    FROM NIWA’S SITE
    http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/nz-temp-record
    NZ temperature record
    Home › Our Science › Climate › Climate – News › NZ temperature record
    There are many lines of evidence showing that NZ has warmed during the past century. These include the “seven station” temperature series, the “eleven station” temperature series, and information from ship measurements of sea-surface temperatures and marine night-time air temperatures over the oceans around NZ.

    ‘Eleven-station’ series temperature data ‘Seven-station’ series temperature dataWhy climate data sometimes need to be adjusted
    July 20, 2010

    ‘Seven-station’ series
    NIWA’s ‘seven-station’ temperature series uses temperature measurements from seven ‘climate stations’. The locations were chosen because they provide a representative geographical spread across NZ and have reliable records dating back at least to the early 1900s. The trend over the past 100 years (1909-2008) is warming of 0.9 ºC.

    More detail

    ‘Eleven-station’ series

    This series comprises a set of eleven stations spanning New Zealand where there have been no significant site moves for many decades. The data used in this series are raw (unadjusted) – no adjustments are required because the measuring sites have not moved significantly. There is a warming trend over the 77 year period 1931-2008 of close to 1 ºC.

    More detail

    The above are taken from the NIWA site;
    for your interest only to show how small the alleged warming is

  3. I am definitely one of those overseas visitors looking for footprints in a coal mine. Messages yesterday on twitter implied the case was finished, but my checks since only show the NIWA defence ie ‘It’s not official and shouldn’t be used for the public so not required to be accurate’ (yes, and the cheque’s in the post…) but it seems they confused the defence with the decision. As a law graduate I know about judicial review and the like and am assuming the two sides have now both deposited their cases (which I would have expected not to be revealed until the case was heard, but this isn’t my local system) for hearing at a (much) later date. Am I correct in guessing the two sides have now completed their depositions and now awaiting a hearing date to be announced?

  4. I have since found this is indeed the case, there is no published schedule of hearing and possibly no hearing at all if they accepted the government’s excuses. Does anyone actually monitor these comments?

  5. val majkus on 21/10/2010 at 9:13 am said:

    David I think the next stage is a ‘case management conference’ and there a time table should be arranged (such as issuing of requests for particulars; replies to those; return of subpoenae for production of documents etc and possibly another conference where a hearing date is set); I’m from Australia but things should be similar in NZ;

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