Tiresome climate propaganda

Here’s a (lightly improved) op-ed I submitted to the Herald a month ago with no acknowledgement. Prof Geoff Duffy describes scientific properties of greenhouse gases that raise significant doubt about the wisdom of mitigating our emissions of any gas. How odd that these fully informed colleagues make no argument against his criticisms, preferring an ineffectual allegation of being “wrong about many [unspecified] aspects of science.” So I ask you, lady and gentlemen: what aspects and how is he wrong? — RT

The letter Our impact on climate very clear, of 8 Oct 2018 (right), by Prof Dave Frame and seven other local climate scientists, gives misleading information about greenhouse gases.

Seeing a letter over those scholarly signatures sparks interest in the pending illumination. But, sadly, Frame et al. (or Frame ‘n Pals) recite the tiresome propaganda of the IPCC without demur and tip-toe around the scientific points made so well by our friend Dr Geoff Duffy.

They present sentences arranged to resemble a logical argument that are in fact unconnected. Each one tells part of the truth, so it’s not wrong, but it neither contributes to an argument nor supports the next sentence.

Any connection between them rests only on our gullibility. Continue Reading →

Visits: 955

How to fix climate alarm

Economists have proposed really effective solutions to the high levels of anxiety felt by politicians and government officials about the risks of transport sector emissions.

The New Zealand Government’s plan to legislate for “Zero Carbon by 2050” has been accompanied by economic modelling that shows the NPV of the economic costs will be huge. See Putting a price on the hair shirt.

Tailrisk Economics, a private firm, has now delivered a devastating critique of both the quality and veracity of the Government’s modelling and consultation documents. The price of feeling good is a must-read for anybody interested in this issue. Continue Reading →

Visits: 419

Reality quells fears of catastrophic ice shelf melt

Beneath the Ross Ice Shelf – click to enlarge

I’ve been informed of significant new research that discovered Antarctic ice shelf melting—constantly referred to as “catastrophic” in warmster commentaries—is considerably less dramatic than we were led to expect—quelle surprise. It even involved a New Zealand scientist but so far this is the only media coverage. Continue Reading →

Visits: 230

World-first listing of carbon fund — NZX

The NZX announces a listing guaranteed to moisten the eyes of greenies around the world. But they won’t be the only ones weeping.

The fund, which received more than $1 million in applications from a range of investors, intends to buy carbon credits in emissions trading schemes in New Zealand and offshore. It is designed to give individuals and organisations a chance to invest in or offset carbon.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 143

The Greens’ strategy for industry and commerce

Letter

Gareth Hughes, Green Party spokesman for our most industrious sectors

Sent on 9/10/2018 at 6:47 PM to Gareth Hughes, list member for the Greens since 2010, spokesman for Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Energy and Resources, Primary Industries, Technology, Research and Development and Science. They are the country’s most industrious sectors—the ones we must take care of, or we all suffer. I fervently hope that Mr Hughes is himself industrious and well informed.

Dear Gareth,

We proudly produce many things we want. From butter to lamb, beef, pork, timber, wine, gold, coal and fish and more, we have laboured for many decades to keep our communities prosperous.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 135

Royal Society must explain refusal to justify climate policy

This open letter was emailed to party leaders and a select group of journalists. Following poor advice from the MfE and an error-ridden report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the Climate Change Minister, James Shaw, has misconstrued the science and proposes inept policy. Mr Shaw should demand an urgent explanation from the Royal Society for their refusal to reveal evidence for a human cause of dangerous global warming and then he should realign national climate policy with a proper understanding of climate science. – RT

Continue Reading →

Visits: 261

Carbon price of coal shunts winter gas price higher

Bloomberg reports:

The highest prices for carbon credits in a decade have also lifted natural gas, discouraging power stations from making the switch away from coal. As a result, demand remains strong for the dirtiest fossil fuel in the continent that’s doing the most to clean up its economy. Coal prices as a result reached their highest in five years on Tuesday.

You might think the ETS impost on coal’s CO2 emissions, about twice those from natural gas, would give gas an edge, but you’d be wrong—rising prices for carbon credits have pushed up the gas prices too. The graph at right shows an eye-watering surge in the carbon price of about 400% over the last 11 months (although I guess 400% of nothing is still pretty small; so it could get worse). This financial punishment for the poor is a clear consequence of market interference by the climate justice do-gooders—nobody else has done this. The sooner they lose office the better, in the EU and everywhere. Continue Reading →

Visits: 460

Royal Society of NZ rejects tenets of science over global warming

SEE UPDATE BELOW

Award-winning architecture of the Royal Society of New Zealand headquarters in Wellington

The Royal Society of New Zealand refuse to give evidence that global warming is man-made.

They say the evidence is overwhelming but will not say what it is. In doing this, they fail to show that future warming will be dangerous and thus void all efforts to prevent it.

Countries don’t go to war without reason. Local bodies don’t close roads for nothing. Juries don’t convict without evidence. Continue Reading →

Visits: 428

Mann’s naked climate activism

Penn State University stadium

Someone thought I needed to work this climate stuff out and helpfully cited a PennState climate course. The course was written by one Michael Mann, no less, with an assistant. It took me two seconds to learn that the course is ineradicably rooted in global warming activism, not science. Continue Reading →

Visits: 191

‘Armageddon Summer’ is just the beginning—but Dyer’s the living end

This post is based on an article I wrote in the Otago Daily Times that answers a bunch of balderdash by Gwynne Dyer about global warming: ‘Armageddon Summer’ is just the beginning (pdf, 134 KB). SNAPPY MOTTO: Defeat drivel, bury baloney. – RT

MULTIPLE LINES of evidence show that Gwynne Dyer is dead wrong (in ‘Armageddon Summer’ is just the beginning, 3/8/18) about the cataclysms he claims will be caused by our continued use of hydrocarbon fuels. Continue Reading →

Visits: 204

Kiwis complacent on global warming

Naturally!

Dr Anna Berka

There’s nothing to be done about global warming beyond feeling anxious, if you choose. We’re not causing any harmful warming and the sporadic warming we’ve seen is of no concern.

But once again we’re being hectored, this time by an academic skilled in redistributive environmental policy, inclusive energy governance and conceptualizing community renewables deployment as a form of associative democracy—oh, yes, Anna Berka knows us so well. Continue Reading →

Visits: 898

Simon says listen

Wikipedia: Simon is a common name, from Hebrew שִׁמְעוֹן Šimʻôn, meaning “listen”.

Listen, Simon.

Two weeks back Simon said the following and I was just too busy to respond. He makes what may seem obvious and sensible points but simply regurgitates the great global warming myths which by now have been so utterly proven false that they are pathetic. However, not all our bystanders know this, so I shall do it again. Simon makes nine separate points: Continue Reading →

Visits: 353

Greens hail the defeat of prosperity but answer this

The Green Party celebrated Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s banning of “the environmentally dangerous and planet-threatening search for new oil and gas in our pristine waters” as an historical victory, rather than the Luddite, anti-progress, backward ideology it plainly advertised.

It’s unthinkable they might already be reconsidering that ideology, but we will prod them in that very direction with questions that their seat on the coalition obliges them to answer. For the Hon James Shaw: Continue Reading →

Visits: 250

Busting out of climate shackles

Dr Mike Kelly alerted me to Roger Pielke Jr’s thoughtful piece at WUWT titled Opening Up the Climate Policy Envelope. I heartily suggest you read it; below is a sample. As well as improving our thinking about climate policy, Dr Pielke makes it sound perfectly reasonable for convinced climate alarmists and unyielding climate sceptics not only to talk with each other but also to reach common ground. A miracle indeed. But wait, there’s more: the questions he poses are those we’ve been waiting for from our political leaders—questions, if quietly contemplated, that would fit them for the decisions we need from them and only they can give—if only they knew.  –RT Continue Reading →

Visits: 203

Zero Carbon meeting — science loses

Consultation or propaganda?

I attended the public meeting on the Zero Carbon Bill in Tauranga last Monday. A team from the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) presented details as part of public consultation on the bill. About 80 people (mostly old ones) turned up, but the Environment Minister, the Hon James Shaw, though expected, did not turn up. Continue Reading →

Visits: 498

A goal breathtakingly scant

SEE UPDATE below

2 July, 2018

Dear Prime Minister,

I wish to register my disagreement with your decision to make us reduce our so-called “carbon” emissions to zero by 2050. You commit the nation to this significant goal without knowing, as your joint statement makes quite plain, what it means, how to achieve it or, extending by simple logic, what it might cause. That is unreasonable.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 795

Now it’s “carbon-free” farming, but what is it? Why do it?

One of the few valid applications of the well-known propaganda term “carbon emissions” (heard of chemistry?). Listen: it’s called carbon dioxide. In a similar way, we don’t try to call water (dihydrogen monoxide) hydrogen.

Eh?

Basically, we don’t know what carbon-free means, we don’t know how to achieve it and we don’t know what it might cause. But oh, yes, we’re going for it! (Big silly grin.) Welcome to the rabbit hole.

from Scoop (h/t Andy S.)

The new Government has set a goal of New Zealand achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Farming leaders with the support of the Government are stating their support for this goal and the agri-food sector playing its part in achieving it.

This is a very ambitious and challenging target for the agri-food sector. We have agreed that there is more work required to understand exactly what this means and how we can achieve it. – emphasis added

This is utter nonsense. By this blunder alone — and there have been many others — the Peters-appointed coalition government secures its release from power at our earliest convenience. Continue Reading →

Visits: 415

Heroic NZ emission cuts versus Chinese colossus

Here’s a harsh dose of reality for the NZ Productivity Commission in attempting to convert us to a “low-emissions” economy. The map shows China’s plans to expand their links with the world in a colossal project that will triple China’s emissions. Their gas discharges already eclipse ours by 250 times so our reductions will be absurdly futile in stemming man-made global warming. The climate won’t notice, but our poor will suffer, while China’s poor rise into the middle class. What do we think we’re doing, cutting back — even banning oil exploration — when we ought to be boosting the economy at full speed?

My friend Dr Mike Kelly kindly sent me a copy of his latest analysis of New Zealand climate policy that he’s just submitted to the New Zealand Productivity Commission in response to its draft report on moving to a Low-emissions economy, which many would describe instead as disabling our productive capacity. Dr Kelly’s unflinching engineer’s eye assesses our Government’s putative policy responses to the climate perils forecast by skittish warmsters and it makes for thoughtful reading.

The New Silk Road

His central message is a revelation: whatever emissions we record over the next 20 years, China’s will be a thousand times larger. In fact, the emissions expected just from their One Belt, One Road, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are destined to overwhelm all other human emissions for twenty and more years. Continue Reading →

Visits: 797

The bare-faced cheek

Now, I’m a sceptic about man-made climate change and though I frequently reproach those, such as the Royal Society of New Zealand, who give some inaccurate account of climate science, I have no particular position to defend but that of dispassion. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what position to adopt.

Because, quite simply, I have questions, which of course are unanswered, which explains my uncertainty. If my questions were answered, they wouldn’t survive, because answers destroy questions — it’s either that, or you go back to sleep. Credible answers will certainly decide the matter, then perhaps I too, like King Canute before me, will turn and contest the climate. Or not. Continue Reading →

Visits: 302

Dr Vincent Gray

Dr Vincent Gray

I regret to announce the death of Dr Vincent Gray at 7:45 yesterday morning, after an illness.

Vincent was a co-founder of the NZ Climate Science Coalition and was generous in sharing his knowledge. He consistently offered me help and encouragement after being invited by Bob Carter to join the Coalition about twelve years ago.

His support of colleagues was matched by an implacable defiance towards opponents, an unmatched skill in identifying errors of reasoning and an enviable fluency in refuting arguments with unfailing courtesy.

The world has lost a ferocious illumination.

Visits: 426

National Geographic ignores the need for evidence

They’re just like the Royal Society


A National Geographic newsletter last March featured climate change. The picture to the right, which appeared in the newsletter, is from NIWA’s website. The caption summarises the effect of carbon dioxide on the climate. It says:

Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that’s getting us into trouble, only amounts to about 385 parts per million of the gases in the atmosphere—not a large amount. But that’s a third more CO2 than 150 years ago, enough to have caused, and continue to cause, significant changes in local and global climate. Twelve of the 13 years from 1995 to 2007 have been the warmest since 1850, while 1998 and 2005 are the warmest years since records began. Over the last 100 years, New Zealand’s temperature has increased by 0.9ºC.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 1875

Royal Society of NZ refuses to reveal evidence of man-made climate change

1 June 2018                                                           FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ) has been accused of concealing evidence for its claims of man-made climate change. The society has also been accused of being in breach of its own Code of Ethics.  The accusations are made in a statement released today by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, which says:

“When Jacinda Ardern said we must battle climate change, it became clear that our new Prime Minister believes the temperature of the earth can be controlled by man. But the leading climate scientists of the RSNZ have refused to reveal evidence that supports her belief.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 1236

Diligent academic sacked for dissent

Peter Ridd and Jennifer Marohasy in Sydney last November during a presentation on quality assurance in science.

Professor Peter Ridd has just been fired from James Cook University, Queensland, for speaking out about misleading science concerning the Great Barrier Reef. He needs a lot of support. He is not the only one.

If your heart beats, strengthen it with a donation to a freedom-loving brother. Fight for freedom now before it’s gone.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 869

CCG in Australia

I was in Bendigo last week with my wife, Ann, to celebrate a daughter’s nuptials. Now we’re in Melbourne for a few days with the happy couple, back to NZ on Wednesday. Out of touch a bit, but watching the emails. Off to the Victoria Market in a few minutes. Nice place but cold, wet and windy on Friday.

Visits: 267

Did the Royal Society prove that we cause dangerous global warming?

Well, no

On April 7 (as you can read in my previous post) I wrote to Dr Julie Maxton, Executive Director of the Royal Society, London, asking a simple question:

I’ve been hunting for evidence for several years without success and now I’m thinking that the Royal Society will surely not let me down. I do hope you can provide a succinct answer. By what mechanism do our emissions cause dangerous global warming?

Shortly afterwards a reply arrived from her Executive Assistant: Continue Reading →

Visits: 1338

Green Utopia

 

Ten years ago, Tom Scott captured this vision of the consequences of Left-Green tyranny. Today, they continue on that backward-looking path, abetted by a compliant Labour Party through an electoral accident that Winston Peters exploited to circumvent the democratic vote and put the Greens and Labour into the same bed. What a pity Peters wasn’t thinking of the national good.

They banned oil exploration, but why? Was it because of global warming? Well, since it hasn’t been warming, what would you say? I say it’s because oil riches threaten us with extraordinary prosperity—which means freedom for everyone. But they don’t trust us with freedom. National does.

PS: The likeness of the ploughwoman to our Helen is astounding.

Click the heading if you wish to access the comment form.

Visits: 900

Royal Society answers my inquiry

On April 7 I wrote to Dr Julie Maxton, Executive Director of the Royal Society, London, saying:

I’ve been hunting for evidence for several years without success and now I’m thinking that the Royal Society will surely not let me down. I do hope you can provide a succinct answer.

By what mechanism do our emissions cause dangerous global warming?

With enormous gratitude,

Continue Reading →

Visits: 710

Kiwi Royal Society fails to produce climate evidence

The Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ) cannot substantiate their claim that mankind is causing dangerous global warming. The NZ Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) have just spent months pursuing them for evidence, which they failed to produce. We believe that it does not exist. Continue Reading →

Visits: 1794

Climate brevity: RSNZ don’t know the science of climate change

But first, Business opportunities in climate change

Liam Dann reports:

Climate change real or imagined is driving massive business change. A risk-management expert told him that the impact of climate change is real whether you believe the science or not. Most people, including those at senior levels of business and government, do believe the science, which means the world is going to be shifting to a lower carbon economy.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 360

Clear the courtroom

A stunning victory in California, as Judge Alsup declines to validate global warming alarmism and delivers a big thumbs-up to the sceptics. A principal plank of the plaintiffs was that the oil companies had conspired to “cover up” global warming science; the judge said the plaintiffs showed “nothing of the sort”. The case is not over.

BOOM! Federal Judge Dismisses Claim Of A Conspiracy To Suppress Global Warming Science

Well done Christopher Monckton for a last-minute assist.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 480

Ill-informed claims of hiatus warming

Well-disinformed comments here prompt a repost from a valuable source of good sense: Matt Ridley. His blog post, Whatever happened to global warming? was published in the Wall Street Journal in September, 2014. Its lessons remain eminently digestible and they deserve to bat for another spell—metaphors that are indeed well mixed. Continue Reading →

Visits: 623

Reprehensible display by Renwick

Professor James Renwick

Just two weeks ago Dr James Renwick published an article in The Spinoff provocatively titled Slaying the zombie memes in that ‘climate sceptic’ column on Stuff. Dr Doug Edmeades had posed some perfectly sensible questions to the science behind the claims of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW), yet Dr Renwick apparently gave them little thought, slating him as presenting “zombie memes”—using a shallow warmster meme himself to denigrate his colleague. It’s amazing what he does next. Continue Reading →

Visits: 2426

Was climate change a lucky escape from lack of warming?

For a long time the common name for the greatest challenge of our generation was “global warming” — in fact, it must have been twenty years or more. We all knew what it was and groaned every time the boring old subject was raised.

Then, maybe a decade or so back, just when people were starting to notice that warming had hit some speed restriction, the name seemed to morph into “climate change”. This was a new name and suddenly climate change was the bogyman. Then, of course, it was all on for young and old — every darn piece of weather was being caused by man-made “climate change”. Continue Reading →

Visits: 300

What IPCC scientists actually say

True science — I mean confessions

The Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) for each IPCC report is written by bureaucrats and politicians for people who cannot follow scientific language. It is not authoritative, frequently misrepresents the science and is always written before the longer scientific report is finished. If the SPM is challenged, one must resort to the WG1 report, written by scientists. What do the scientists say?

We present here, from the AR4 (2007) (pdf, 106.9 MB) and AR5 (2013) (pdf, 375 MB) reports, a selection of passages that speak against extremist climate change forecasts widely circulated by activists. They are not much referred to by warmsters but they should be widely known, especially by those spending our hard-earned taxes. Dip into these facts — discover the real science and prepare to be amazed by the discord between the claims of the warmsters and the sober consideration of scientists (emphasis added). Continue Reading →

Visits: 408

Site traffic is great

A non-trivial audience

 

I’ll try to post this once a month or so, keep you in touch with the real size of the CCG’s audience.

Hail, O audience!

UPDATE 6 FEB

These traffic figures have suddenly reduced themselves, and I think I know why. Only the number of visits has changed, the number of unique visitors has changed only minutely. For example, peak visits on 18 December is now 2232, when two weeks ago it was over 7000, but visitors number 743, when previously they were  almost the same at 739. I changed a setting a few days ago that now counts every visitor with over 50 visits in a day as a robot; so it eliminates their visits. I would guess one robot could easily account for up to 1000 page requests, as there are over 1000 posts, so losing 5000 visits might mean there were about five unidentified robots. Most robots are identified by a regularly updated database but it’s not infallible. The change means that more than 50 genuine page requests in a day by a real visitor aren’t counted in the statistics, but it’s the best we can do. I had to let you know of the change, and anyway daily average visits of 1400 is pretty impressive (over 42,000 visits a month). So thanks! You make the striving worthwhile.

Visits: 507

Lancet blasted for ‘sacrificing the poor’

The GWPF gives us a blockbusting new report from Mikko Paunio, an adjunct professor in general epidemiology at the University of Helsinki. Professor Paunio blasts the Lancet for a “gross distortion” of public health science. What follows is the Executive Summary (emphasis added). You can get the full paper here (pdf, 30 pp, 986 KB). – RT

The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, recently published two long commissioned reports, timed to coincide with 23rd Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the third UN Environment Assembly. The journal’s aim was to boost climate change mitigation and enhance a ‘Pollution-free World’ initiative in the name of public health. This paper gives examples of the biased, misleading and false health-based arguments that are made in these reports. Continue Reading →

Visits: 387

On climate nightmares, daft sea level predictions and reason

Climate nightmare

The story of dangerous anthropogenic global warming is painted as a delicate jigsaw. Diverse enigmatic elements mysteriously combine through uncaring human activity to destroy the planet, preventing which is called “the greatest challenge of our generation.”

At root, however, the story is simple; it’s painted as complex to baffle us. At root, our constant carbon dioxide emissions increasingly heat the atmosphere. But we observe that carbon dioxide does not keep heating the atmosphere, which is demonstrably not warming very much and, debunking the warmsters story, this is the coldest period in the last 65 million years, and for the last 420,000 years, natural temperature changes controlled CO2 levels. There has never been runaway warming.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 1156

Farming versus Nature

A majestic view of the biosphere and of oneself.

Who does it better?

Can we really improve on nature? Is it remotely possible for us to reproduce her elegant mysteries or achieve her breathtaking biological efficiencies, or is our greatest work a crude parody?

Dr Kelli Archie, climate change lecturer, VUW.

In an article in yesterday’s Herald, Resistance is fertile in battle for our climate, (a Dr Who reference — hilarious!) Dr Kelli Archie (right, evincing a fine enthusiasm in the face of an imminent global calamity) makes a case for reducing our meat intake for the sake of climate control. The concept that anthropogenic climate change might be dangerous is sheer madness, so I recommend the term ‘climate control’ when the focus is humanity’s culpability, to emphasize its foolishness. Continue Reading →

Visits: 1279