UPDATE 3 September 2020
I received a reply a month ago. See below the horizontal line.
Our letter to Dr Rod Carr, Chairman, Climate Change Commission Secretariat.
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Digging ourselves a hole
Dr Michael Kelly likens New Zealand’s Zero Carbon project to digging a hole while someone else fills it in.
Say the government has decided it’s an important national project, so they assign a platoon of 50 strong men and play trumpet fanfares so they’ll give it their maximum effort. But we discover China has amassed several battalions, totalling over 6000 men, to fill the trench faster than we can dig it. Continue Reading →
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James Shaw tells us to “use the energy nature provides”
Coal, oil and gas are provided by nature
Turn the coal, oil and gas right back on, Mr Shaw.
The Green Party’s Clean Energy Plan released yesterday announces they want to save the world by eliminating crude oil from our lives. They haven’t asked whether we want this, but surely James Shaw’s heart is in the right place because he says they want to “create a truly sustainable Aotearoa that runs on the energy nature provides.”
I can only agree. “Yes, Mother Nature provides fossil fuels. We should use them. James Shaw for king.” Continue Reading →
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God knows where he is
They say the Almighty has moved to New Zealand. Continue Reading →
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Revere science and crush the enemy
Yes, it’s about the science, so study science. But only so we can crush the enemy. Continue Reading →
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Another false alarm goes up in smoke
Adelie penguins wondering whether it’s safe to swim.
On Dec 29, 2007, ZeeNews reported that Adélie penguins faced extinction within five to ten years due to climate change. They quickly changed that to “locally extinct”, which means not extinct, extant.
But never mind — melting ice is making it easier for the darling Adélies to find food. Hurrah! Continue Reading →
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Facts change minds, begin a trend
A few days ago, Zion Lights (yes, her real name, from birth) dumped Extinction Rebellion in favour of Environmental Progress to promote nuclear power. Can’t get more contrast than that. Continue Reading →
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Tell the truth about climate, you’re rubbed out
Michael Shellenberger apologised for participating in the climate scare. Among the sites posting his lengthy apology was Forbes. Continue Reading →
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The UN can’t prove we cause global warming
It’s beyond dispute
They have no evidence.
The Internet is now loud with doubt about man-made global warming. You can find articles all over the place sceptical of the idea, where once there was widespread accord on the UN climate narrative that accuses humanity of dangerous interference with the climate.
Thirty years since the first Assessment Report, science has certainly advanced. As it should, we’ve spent plenty on it: the 2015 Paris Agreement alone, according to Bjorn Lomborg, will increase global spending on climate change to one or two trillion US dollars a year by 2030.
We’ve learned more about the climate system and human emissions. For all their lack of skill, the inscrutable climate models have greatly improved. They have been adjusted downwards after every Assessment Report to avoid persistently high temperatures, but over 97% of them (111 of 114 models) still run too hot. Continue Reading →
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If you know some climate science, we’d love your essay
Jarrod Gilbert, NZ Herald, 22 January, says:
Based on all of the information available to us, there is no sound argument against the existence of anthropogenic climate change, only ignorance of the scientific consensus and an arrogance to argue against it – often by people armed only with an elementary education and an internet connection.
When you have highly educated scientists amassed on one side, it’s prudent to stick with their assessment of matters relating to science. If you want to understand how to be a complete twonk, seek notes from those peddling the other side. But for science, definitely stick with the scientists.
It’s a bit early for arguments against its existence. Continue Reading →
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Todd Muller must abandon Shaw’s treacherous Zero Carbon folly
Todd Muller supports a socialist wrecker — is that wise?
Some National Party strategists think Todd Muller can hardly say he supports the Zero Carbon Act then do nothing about it. Sooner or later you must accept that National has agreed to the Zero Carbon Bill as a matter of policy and therefore has to show some acceptance of its obligations.
But the implied condition of support for any proposal is that the assumptions behind it remain true. If it emerges that the basis of a policy is wrong, it then becomes the height of reason to withdraw your support. The new honourable path is to abandon it.
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To achieve Net Zero, make a plan, good and solid
It is futile if we can’t afford it. The UK can’t afford it, so don’t try to convert these costs, just think “we can’t afford it either.” It might take your mind off the sheer futility of this Zero Carbon agony.
Waterproof engineering analysis from Professor Michael Kelly
– first published at CapX
How powerful this myth of causing climate change has become — or rather, how the powerful have made this myth to flourish.
The world of superfast computing and miraculous hand-held devices that most of us now take for granted did not appear by accident. It was the product of a very clear roadmap, agreed across the electronics industry from 1970 to 2015. An equally clear and widely agreed roadmap will be essential to achieving the target of a net-zero emission global economy in 2050.
Intel founder Gordon Moore’s empirical observation that the transistor count on chips was doubling every two years, while the chips stayed the same size, morphed into an industry-wide target that held for nearly 50 years. By the mid-1980s, a Technology Roadmap became a feature of the whole industry. Continue Reading →
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Everyone swears the IPCC have proof, but still nothing from the AR5
The IPCC don’t have no evidence!
(All right, all right! Leave off with the double negative put-downs already!)
common arguments • interesting rebuttals • startling absence of proof
Reader:
Looking at the recent geological (let’s say prehistoric) record then the exogenous inputs (mainly from volcanism) seem to have been low relative to historic exogenous inputs (mainly from agricultural soil organic matter breakdown and fossil fuel burning), which means that the two eras are not comparable and so conclusions drawn from one cannot be applied to the other.
Yet the IPCC does exactly that. They rip an isolated fact from its primeval context and claim it applies today. But it flies in the face of copious evidence and asserts that the global mean surface temperature (GMST) is determined by only a single factor: the trace gas carbon dioxide. For instance, on p. 50, the AR5 Technical Summary harks back 52 million years to inform us: Continue Reading →
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Solid evidence the heart of science, blind faith its foe
SEE CORRECTION BELOW
Will you believe what you have not seen?
We might call it the Barcelona Effect (see below), though the Bible puts it differently. The essence of religious belief was given elegant form for all religions over 1900 years ago in the book of Hebrews (11, 1):
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (King James Bible, Hebrews 11:1).
This compassionate assurance has lent solace to countless generations in pain, soothed quaking hearts and granted peace to restless minds, yet such an evidence-free belief is repugnant to science, to which we readily turn for answers in all other matters. The scientist, whether religious or atheistic, possesses an indelible faith in tangible evidence, mathematics and logic. A deficit in any of those absolutely prohibits acceptance of a thesis. Continue Reading →
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Following Arrhenius on global warming
But he did change his mind …
Click to enlarge
This 1912 newspaper article (right) shows that a century ago the worthy citizens of Warkworth were followers of Svante Arrhenius’s new theory that global warming would be caused by mankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases.
Forty years earlier Tyndall had identified CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Arrhenius followed up with newly available data in 1896 and calculated that doubling CO2 would increase temperatures by 5°C or 6°C. In 1906 he reduced it to 4.0°C.
Arrhenius is frequently cited by warmsters chiding sceptics for their lack of belief, telling them, “Science has known about dangerous warming for 120 years.” But science knew nothing of dangerous warming, because Arrhenius showed none. He was free of the modern pathological aversion to carbon dioxide (the gas of life) because he saw no reason to object to it. Continue Reading →
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Carbon dioxide may soon fog the brain
Is it too late for climate scientists?
A recent article on Stuff looks at the effects of high levels of carbon dioxide on brain function and suggests that the minuscule annual increases of one or two parts per million in CO2 levels will make it harder to reason. But it’s highly improbable because atmospheric levels are nowhere near those required to disrupt our thinking.
“High concentrations of carbon dioxide reduces [sic] oxygen to the brain and dulls our thinking – so what happens if we continue to burn fossil fuels indiscriminately?”
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Our new abortion laws have fatal flaws
Family First’s latest newsletter. They ask us to help distribute it, which I’m happy to do because our government just removed protection for unborn babies without consulting us and acting in obscene haste under cover of the COVID-19 response.
“FATAL FLAWS”
ONE OF THE MOST EXTREME ABORTION LAWS IN THE WORLD
As the new abortion laws were being rushed through Parliament in the week before we went into Lockdown 4, and while most of the world was focused on COVID-19 and how we could save lives, one of the things that the Government did very well (aided by a predominantly pro-abortion media) was to mask the true intent and effect of the law change, and to shut down any debate (including oral submissions) and amendments which would have made it slightly less extreme.
And because Continue Reading →
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Yes, there’s a virus crisis — by our socialist government
Our civil rights rescinded
Did you notice? Four days ago our civil rights were unceremoniously rescinded. Jacinda the Rescinder (openly communist) accomplished it without consultation, without advance notice, without apology and rammed through the House in a week.
She even told us she was doing us a favour, saving us from COVID-19, in the best tradition of power-grabbers everywhere. Continue Reading →
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RIP Fred Singer, climate sceptic from before we were born
Professor S. Fred Singer has died, aged 95. Continue Reading →
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Ignore sceptical thought at your peril
Associate Professor Janet Stephenson says a few thoughtful things on Newsroom. Here’s one.
When it comes to re-starting New Zealand’s economy, we can’t afford to have a mind-set of ‘we’ll do whatever it takes’. That would just lock us back into those train tracks that head to a future in which everyone loses.
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A letter ignored
This letter was sent on 24 April. It asks an important question. Professor Stephenson’s intellectual steel feels like marshmallow.
Dear Professor Stephenson,
You said on Newsroom yesterday that our economy “threatens life on this planet.”
Perhaps you’ve made a careful examination and you’ve actually found reasons to justify that alarming statement. I should assume that’s the case, though about half the country appears to disagree with you, which to my mind suggests you explain exactly why we’re so dangerous. Regrettably, your article overlooked that part. Continue Reading →
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Academic tells us to use Maori stars for planning
Associate Professor Janet Stephenson, University of Otago, made a remarkable statement today in Newsroom.
The current nationwide pause as a result of Covid-19 is an extraordinary opportunity, and probably the only one we will get, to redesign our economy so that it no longer threatens life on this planet.
We could agree there’s a nationwide pause in the Covid-19 crisis as our leaders consider our options. Continue Reading →
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Blunt good sense from Bob Jones
The coming economic crisis and its political consequences
by Sir Bob Jones • reblogged from Sir Bob’s blog • originally published 13 April, 2020
Have an election today and the government would bolt in, primarily because of Jacinda’s star power induced by the media’s obsession with her. But the election is six months away and then, I’m picking a change of government. Continue Reading →
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Assisting supermarket social distancing
We make the effort
The Supermarket Social Distancing aid — a two-metre hula hoop.
so you don’t have to
In our supermarket visits, fellow shoppers constantly infringe on our two social metres of separation, so I’ve devised a simple, inexpensive and easily-procured solution.
Sitting comfortably on the head and waist bands, the Keep-Off Social Distancer leaves your hands free to select the items you need.
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Let’s all close the Queen’s highways
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If Hone Harawira can do it, we can all do it.
When will the police ask Harawira what authority he has to set up “checkpoints” on our public roads?
He claims he is somehow authorised to demand our reasons for travel and if those reasons don’t meet his approval, he’ll close the road. Continue Reading →
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Shaw’s parade of climate fiction draws official review
State Services Commissioner to review MfE performance
The Labour-Green Coalition Government published the discussion document Our Climate Your Say (“the Consultation Document”) in 2018 to pave the way for the Zero Carbon Bill that received Royal assent on 13 November, 2019. Robin Grieve, of Whangarei, studied the document and was disturbed to discover scientific errors, political bias and propaganda. He raised his complaints with Vicky Robertson, Secretary for the Environment. She replied but didn’t take her department’s ethical breaches seriously.
When it comes to accuracy, political neutrality and inspiring the nation to save the planet, just how badly must a public servant behave to earn a manager’s rebuke? By normal standards, addressing the parade of fiction in the Zero Carbon campaign should never have waited on a complaint from outside the organisation. It should have been dealt with firmly in-house.
Robin escalated the matter to the State Services Commissioner, Peter Hughes, who has instigated an investigation of the Consultation Document with reference to state services integrity, ethics and standards. Continue Reading →
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Greenpeace study on penguin decline far-fetched or fraudulent?
Where’s the paper?
Does Greenpeace expect us to accept their numbers without demur? To accept the cause they suggest? When can we question the researchers? A few inquiries raise serious questions about the study’s credibility. This is how the story begins on the Greenpeace website, with the headline shown in the screen grab:
February 10, 2020 – Scientists surveying chinstrap penguin colonies in the Antarctic have found drastic reductions in many colonies, with some declining by as much as 77 percent since they were last surveyed almost 50 years ago.
The independent researchers, on a Greenpeace expedition to the region, found that every single colony surveyed on Elephant Island, an important habitat northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had declined. The number of chinstrap penguins on Elephant Island has dropped almost 60 percent since the last survey in 1971, with a total count of only 52,786 breeding pairs of chinstrap penguins, plummeting from previous survey estimates of around 122,550 pairs. Continue Reading →
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Any evidence yet, James?
My last communication to James Renwick was July last year. I said this:
Eventfinda are advertising your presentation in Nelson in August called “Climate Emergency”. What does it mean? What data does it rest on? What makes it an emergency? If you’re not too busy I hope you can help.
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Coalition conversations
Nonsense and Stuff on ocean ‘acidification’
[Anon]: Stuff (& RNZ) ran a piece yesterday on the “acidification” of seawater around the hydrothermal vents of White Island. One piece caught my eye: that pH levels of global seawater would fall to levels around 6.8 by 2100.
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Anthropologist becomes arrogant climate activist
Here is a letter I sent this evening to Dame Anne Salmond, anthropologist and historian, Professor in Maori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, and 2013 New Zealander of the Year. An opinion piece she wrote on climate change in Stuff today considers climate sceptics beneath an honest anthropologist’s contempt.
Dear Dame Anne,
You expressed pride in a letter you signed ten years ago describing climate sceptics as “climate deniers”, even though ‘sceptical’ has long been a deeply admired virtue of all good scientists. Continue Reading →
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Herald disbelieve unbelievers
A brain-dead editorial, a fresh view of CO2, an amazing letter, the kitten and the blue whale.
An editorial in Tuesday’s Herald ($) begins:
Amazing that he somehow knows what is discussed not only in “most households” but in “other social gatherings,” though it sounds to me like projection. The editorial goes on to conflate our discoloured sky, the scale of the bush fire outbreaks and the heat at the Melbourne cricket as reasons we ought not doubt we’re causing dangerous warming. It says we not only saw but felt the heat of the bush fires in New Zealand (which, 1200 km away, pushes the barrow a mite far). Preposterously, it ends: “The sun was so sizzling it became a wonder anything combustible was not catching fire.” But maybe Auntie Herald was trying to crack a funny. Continue Reading →
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Herald silencing climate sceptics
Click to read the letters.
The Herald printed these letters on Saturday. Here is the letter (now slightly altered) I sent them that day, still unpublished as far as I know. The word count had to be under 200 words.
One cannot say much in just 200 words, but newspapers make it harder by not allowing multiple replies to multiple letters. Hence my achievement in replying to four letters, with extreme brevity, in the presence of the enemy and under fire from letter-writers on the one hand and journalists on the other, surely all but deserves the VC. Though some will demur. Continue Reading →
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Mike Kelly cool, agile under BBC 4 climate grilling
Once a year the BBC invites guest editors onto Radio 4 to assemble the Today programme. The latest batch includes Greta Thunberg, the child climate activist, and Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher biographer and former Telegraph editor.
Professor Michael Kelly
Moore gave a spot on the programme to our friend Michael Kelly, Cambridge Professor of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society, Prince Philip Professor of Technology, former chief scientific advisor to the Department for Communities and Local Government, and member of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Introducing Kelly’s segment [at 32:22], Charles Moore observes wryly:
One of the subjects that’s very difficult to air on the BBC if you don’t share the prevailing view is climate change.
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Shaw appoints Climate Lords & Ladies
James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change, appoints new Climate Lords to the NZ Climate Change Commission. The NZ Climate Science Coalition says it contravenes the legislation that spawned the Commission. This is the NZCSC press release.
From the desk of Chairman, Barry Brill, OBE
Email: [email protected]
Climate Change Commission ”Fatally Undermined” by Appointment of Careerists and Campaigners
The potential credibility and standing of the Climate Change Commission announced by Minister James Shaw has been fatally undermined by the inclusion of four full-time climate change careerists and campaigners, according to the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
Continue Reading →
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Discrepancy grows between climate models and observations
Important update from Spencer & Christy
A few days ago Drs Roy Spencer and John Christy published updated graphs they first presented to a Heartland conference in July. Roy says:
I keep getting asked about our charts comparing the CMIP5 models to observations, old versions of which are still circulating, so it could be I have not been proactive enough at providing updates to those. Since I presented some charts at the Heartland conference in D.C. in July summarizing the latest results we had as of that time, I thought I would reproduce those here. Continue Reading →
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No escape from climate reality or alarm
There’s no escaping the relentless barrage of climate alarm. Two weeks ago Mike Hosking accused us all of dishonesty over climate change, for we lament the potential of fossil fuels to destroy us while our emissions reach record levels and we use ever more coal, oil and gas but politicians around the world do nothing about it. Continue Reading →
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Climate zealots infiltrate our public service
THIS must be stopped
Around the world, climate sceptics increasingly challenge governments over policies to change the weather. From furious French Yellow Vest protests against climate policy, soaring petrol taxes, education reform and a raft of other issues to Canadian provinces’ increasingly tough resistance to Justin Trudeau’s aggressive carbon pricing, Australian political opposition, frank climate rebellion among EU members and with numerous nations renouncing climate commitments, sceptics around the globe have grown truculent as never before. Continue Reading →
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This Claytons global warming
The global warming you have when you have no global warming
“The drink you have when you’re not having a drink”
Like the sham whisky peddled in the 1970s and 80s, today’s fashionable narrative of global warming satisfies no one.
Climate realists and sceptics, knowing the facts, are frustrated by witless political surrender to counterfeit science, while climate agitators declare a crisis just to make something happen, since there’s no public belief, no political commitment and—fundamentally disturbing—no warming.
Yes, we have not been warming (well, nothing you could call a crisis …).
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Blog housekeeping — please check your recent comments
Hello everyone
My apologies! Please check your recent comments have been published. If not, you might like to submit them again. Thanks. Continue Reading →
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Elegant Lindzen logic
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Bygone days
Now we’re all wondering about the future.
Yes, we got thumped by the English, but I’m not pessimistic about the AB’s prospects. They bounced back with a firm statement in trouncing Wales. Continue Reading →
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Yes, it IS hard to believe there’s no evidence — so ask the IPCC yourself
Email addresses below
“The influence of mankind on climate is trivially true and numerically insignificant. – Dr Richard Lindzen
It’s true. They have no proof.
So you say the science is settled, you trust 97% of climate scientists and you call me a denier. It’s hardly surprising and I sympathise with that view—we’ve been badgered over it for years.
But all we sceptics do is ask you, “What’s the evidence?” There’s no denial in that, so what’s your answer? If the science really is settled, what evidence is it based on? There’s been a tide of global warming propaganda for the last few decades, so if there was any proof we are causing dangerous warming, do you think they’d let us forget it? The fact that we don’t know what it is shows they don’t have any proof. Continue Reading →
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Annual GWPF Lecture 2019
Professor Michael Kelly
The Global Warming Policy Foundation announces the 2019 Annual GWPF Lecture will be delivered by Professor Michael Kelly, FRS, FREng, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Engineering, University of Cambridge. Continue Reading →
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Coalition conversations
Government shuts out sceptics
Without saying a thing — no conspiracy necessary.
The Minister for Climate Change, the Hon James Shaw, set up the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) in April 2018. Some of us were discussing it earlier today.
[Anon1:] A major problem is that Harry Clark, who is the only scientist on the ICCC, has a conflict of interest. If we submitted Jock & Tom’s paper (Greenhouse gases – a more realistic view (2018)), for instance, then Harry Clark would pour cold water on it. If he accepted the conclusions then his job and research funding for the greenhouse gas research outfit would cease. If he were replaced with Reisinger or Frame the same thing would happen. Continue Reading →
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Grammar goblins
Unmasking the imps that toy with our culture
in the guerilla war on our language
We see mistakes in the Herald every day, but this morning there’s an inglorious language blunder from a sports reporter:
“If the browbeaten All Blacks were expecting an easier time of it in the World Cup bronze match against Wales on Friday, they have another thing coming.
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Primary sector climate change commitment
Undated, but perhaps mid to late 19th century.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand today issued an Update to Farmers about Climate Change and Water, including their Announcement on Agricultural Emissions. Continue Reading →
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The Zero Carbon Bill analysis – 6
Essay 6: Big emissions reduction bang for every buck
Reducing emissions is expensive. Every dollar spent on climate change mitigation is a dollar unavailable for health or housing or poverty; waste is unacceptable. New Zealand’s new Commission must recognise that where emissions occur is irrelevant and stick with the “global peaking” aim.
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The Zero Carbon Bill analysis – 5
Essay 5: Cuckoo Shaw lays 1.5°C egg in cosy Paris nest
The Paris treaty ratified by New Zealand says: “We’ll keep the temperature increase to 2°C, never mind about trying for 1.5°C.” But Shaw says: “Yeah, nah. Never mind about 2°C, we’ll shoot for 1.5°C, the lower the better, right? Lead the world. How hard can it be?”
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Climate Coalition conversations
Heating the ocean with a hair dryer
Not a conversation this time, just a snippet — an important one to me, because it’s further confirmation of my layman opinion that man-made emissions cannot significantly heat the ocean, and important for all climate sceptics, since it adds to arguments refuting the climate scare. Note that this scientist’s view applies to greenhouse gases in general, whereas the DAGW scare relies only on mankind’s emissions, which are a tiny fraction of atmospheric carbon dioxide — less than 10% of all CO2, or about 0.004% of the atmosphere. Continue Reading →
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Shaw’s Green dreams, real-world needs
Roger Pielke Jr. delivers the harsh, mathematical truth. Even if every person in the world thought abandoning fossil fuels made sense, even if every last government was committed to such a plan, the sheer size of the task would remain. He says the scale is mind-boggling.
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