Has the ugly demand for ‘diversity’ reached New Zealand?

Bryan Leyland has decades-long experience in electricity generation projects of all kinds. He applied to the NZ Battery Project to join its Technical Reference Group. This week he learned he had been unsuccessful. Their letter offered a summary of why he missed out.

Addressing New Zealand’s dry year problem is not simply a technical problem. There are a number of intersecting issues and considerations, and subsequently the TRG needs to reflect this complexity through a diverse membership.
Nga mihi
The NZ Battery Project team

This anonymous writer makes a dog’s breakfast of “explaining” the dry year problem. I respond to each mistake.

Addressing New Zealand’s dry year problem is not simply a technical problem.

You get full marks for correctly stating the name of the country, but after that you get a lot wrong. Since the name of your group includes the word ‘Technical’ you will be asked to solve technical problems, so get used to it. The dry-year problem is entirely a technical problem, and if you get it right, it will be solved. Any remaining financial, social, democratic, equity or gender problems will dissolve. Or at least you won’t have to fix them in the dark with the heater off.

There are a number of intersecting issues and considerations, and subsequently…

I think you mean consequently. According to you, the second thing doesn’t merely follow the first, it’s caused by it.

…the TRG needs to reflect this complexity through a diverse membership.

No, you don’t want to reflect any complexity, you want to reduce it, so you need to solve a complex problem, for which you recruit the very best-qualified candidates, irrespective of their country of origin, their colour or their sex. You say you need a diverse membership? Please stop being stupid.

If you end up with a diverse membership, fine. But for Pete’s sake don’t aim at it, aim at skill, competence and excellence.

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5 Thoughts on “Has the ugly demand for ‘diversity’ reached New Zealand?

  1. Charles on 24/04/2021 at 8:42 am said:

    Bryan Leyland sees no reason to reduce CO2 emissions; more CO2 is good.

    He opposes building a pumped hydro scheme at Lake Onslow.

    In fact, he recommends stockpiling and burning coal; wants to find and burn gas.

    What possible use is Bryan Leyland?

    • Esra Dral on 24/04/2021 at 10:05 am said:

      Hi Charles,

      Interesting couple of posts. I assume from these that you are firmly of the belief that CO2 causes climate change. I am a bit on the fence here. Most papers I have read start from a premise:
      The scientists make an observation about climate. They know increasing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming, therefore the climate observation must be due to CO2 and man’s activities. I would go along with this if it wasn’t for one small issue. I have yet to see the actual proof that CO2 causes any further warming once it has passed 280 ppm. There are plenty of scientific papers on this and one of the first I read was published back in 1999 by the Grantham climate labs at the University College, London. This stated that warming caused by increasing CO2 levels was logarithmic up until 280 ppm. Any further warming after that point was super- logarithmic. In other words, further warming was always approaching, but never quite reaching zero. In real terms, it was possible to calculate further warming, but the increase was so small it was impossible to actually measure.
      You may be able to point me in the right direction for actual proof. After all, the guys over at climatescience.org.nz have a standing offer to pay $10,000 to anyone who can actually prove that CO2 causes warming. We could split the prize money 🙂

    • Richard Treadgold on 24/04/2021 at 10:47 am said:

      Hi Charles, thanks for dropping in.

      Bryan is in good company; millions around the world, including a huge number of scientists, see no harm in CO2. It’s an odourless, colourless, tasteless trace gas (only 0.0004% of the atmosphere) vital for the growth of all plants, including marine plants, and thus essential for the life of all animals, including man. There’s no evidence it causes dangerous atmospheric warming; if you disagree, I’d love to examine your proof.

      Why, precisely, does he oppose the Onslow pumped hydro scheme? I’m confident it’s nothing to do with any bias you think he might have towards CO2, but about some aspect of the engineering or tunnelling, in which he’s an expert.

      He recommends burning coal only in strictly limited situations. There are plenty of cases where other hydrocarbons make much more sense than coal. He recommends burning coal at Huntly to generate power during a dry year. That’s because we can produce the stuff ourselves and wouldn’t need to import it at greater cost. Also because that’s what Huntly was built to use and there’s one unit (maybe two) not converted to gas, so no extra expense is needed. I’ve probably left something out, I’m no electricity expert. He supports the use of gas because it’s plentiful in New Zealand (before Saint Jacinda virtually banned the stuff without asking anyone, such as the voters), inexpensive and emits far less CO2 per kg burned than coal does.

      What use is he? How deprecating is that?! For one thing, he could design a good hydroelectric power generating station for your hill country. Very little CO2 out of those things but for some reason you probably don’t like them.

  2. ross on 24/04/2021 at 10:45 am said:

    Hi Esra, I was similarly on the fence re CO2 warming and mostly politicly neutral but the constant alarmism from the pro catastrophic warming zealots masquerading as science as well as the young Greta phenomenon the UN keeps promoting was just a huge red flag. As I read different sites and comments on this subject I find that the more considered, logical and scientifically reasoned comments and opinions are heavily weighted towards no CAGW.

  3. Graham on 24/04/2021 at 10:35 pm said:

    I don”t think it is a good place to sit .On the fence you could do your selves an injury Ross and Esra.
    I have followed this climate scare for more than 30 years now and it is getting more absurd each year .
    AS Esra states quite correctly the saturation level of CO2 in the atmosphere has been reached and as its effect is logarithmic any further increase in global levels cannot cause any increase in warmth .
    There is so much nonsense and straight out lies printed and broadcast in our news media today .
    I take issue with the completely insane accounting systems that are used to measure our nations so called emission profile .
    All plantation forestry harvested is counted as New Zealands emissions .How can this be ?
    Our Radiata Pine forests are harvested at least 3 times per century and they have all absorbed CO2 .A great deal of the treated timber will still be in place in buildings and fencing after 60 years so this timber is actually a carbon sink .
    Enteric methane from farmed livestock is a cycle and not one additional gram of CO2 or methane is added to the atmosphere over any time frame .
    All fodder whether it be pasture maize or other crops and including Palm Kernel Expellar PKE has absorbed C02 to grow and the very small amount of methane that is expelled during digestion is broken down in the upper atmosphere in around 10 years ,IT IS A CYCLE and it can never increase the amount of methane or C02 in the atmosphere NEVER in a 100 years.
    This is so simple yet politicians and even scientists can not understand these basic facts.
    Where is the problem with methane from farmed livestock when from 1999 untill 2008 global levels flat-lined so what was emitted from all sources throughout the world were breaking down at the same rate .
    No problem untill global coal production ramped up from a stable 4.7 billion tonnes over those years and from 2008 untill 2018 world coal production increase exceeding 8.2 billion tonnes,
    Our government want to squash our livestock industry so that Asia can mine and burn as much coal as they like with no restrictions .
    I presented these figures as submissions to the government two years ago at the select committee on climate change and it went right over their heads .They did not want to know .
    New Zealand exports food to feed 25 million people around the world and this government is trying to limit our farmers output by introducing carbon taxes and other crazy ideas .
    Our meat and dairy products can be produced and shipped to the other side of the world and and our exports still have a lower carbon footprint than the European and North American locally produced meat and milk products .
    Where is the sense in putting restrictions on our farmers as other countries will then produce with higher carbon footprints and world emissions will rise as a consequence .

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