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 →

Visits: 8

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 →

Visits: 32

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 Here is the letter (now slightly altered) I sent them that day, still unpublished as far as I know.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 →

Visits: 25

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.

Prof Mike Kelly

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.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 488

Fighting fires with fire

Media Release — Holiday reading

The Power of the Torch
There can be few if any races who for so long were able to practice the delights of incendiarism.
          Geoffrey Blainey “Triumph of the Nomads – A History of Ancient Australia.”  (Macmillan 1975)

The fire-lighter was the most powerful tool that early humans brought to Australia.

Fires lit by aboriginal men and women created the landscape of Australia. They used fire to create and fertilise fresh new grass for the grazing animals that they hunted, to trap and roast grass-dwelling reptiles and rodents, to fight enemies, to send smoke signals, to fell dead trees for camp fires, to ward off frosts and biting insects, and for religious and cultural ceremonies. Their fires created and maintained grasslands and open forests and extinguished all flora and fauna unable to cope with frequent burn-offs. Continue Reading →

Visits: 58

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: barry.brill@gmail.com

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 →

Visits: 174

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 →

Visits: 232

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 →

Visits: 125

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 →

Visits: 115

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 …).

Continue Reading →

Visits: 259

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 →

Visits: 518

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 →

Visits: 76

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.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 60

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.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 105

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?”

Continue Reading →

Visits: 68

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 →

Visits: 146

Shaw’s Green dreams, real-world needs

Donna Laframboise

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.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 185

Talk and a little action at UN climate summit

Politicians and business leaders announced new steps to fight climate change. But much remains to be done.
Source: The Economist

THOSE CONCERNED about global warming change had a clear message for the leaders attending the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23rd. Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old activist, led protests in New York imploring politicians to act now to limit rising temperatures, and warned leaders at the summit: “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.” Continue Reading →

Visits: 66

Global warming facts to calm your sobbing children

A list of facts to remove children’s terror of global warming from Andrew Bolt, of the Herald Sun, Melbourne. He says it won’t kill you and we must fight the hysteria that follows Greta Thunberg’s breakdown at the United Nations. Easy to print out — distribute wildly widely.
UPDATED 16 Nov — added a link to Andrew Bolt’s article and corrected the link to Australian rainfall since 1900, adding a mini preview too.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 606

New global network of sceptical climate scientists

A significant new collaboration will present rational views of climate change theory and observation on a global stage.

European Climate Declaration

From: Professor Guus Berkhout
guus.berkhout@clintel.org

23 September 2019

 

Sr. António Guterres,
Secretary-General,
United Nations,
United Nations Headquarters,
New York, NY 10017,
United States of America.

Ms. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano,
Executive Secretary,
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
UNFCCC Secretariat,
UN Campus,
Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1,
53113 Bonn, Germany.

 

Your Excellencies,

There is no climate emergency

A global network of more than 500 knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields have the honor to address to Your Excellencies the attached European Climate Declaration, for which the signatories to this letter are the national ambassadors.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 995

The Zero Carbon Bill analysis – 4

New paper kills the Zero Carbon Bill dead

Nuclear power has moved on since Fukushima — now Gen III and IV, small, self-regulating, cannot melt down, put them virtually anywhere. Available in various sizes that last from 3 to 20 years or more. If it fails, truck in another one. Cheaper than coal, more efficient and safer than ever. Come on, Greenies, why resist it? Afraid we might survive your climate crisis?

Essay 4: Climate scare could be gone by 2030

The Hon Barry Brill’s fourth essay (pdf, 302 KB) of these eleven on the Zero Carbon Bill examines the Government’s economic modelling, which tells us increasing New Zealand’s net emissions target from 50% to 100% by 2050 will cost us $200–$300 billion over 30 or more years of ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ Continue Reading →

Visits: 112

Hey, Renwick says climate ‘could’ get hotter

He ‘could’ be worth reading

— by Owen Jennings
Member, NZ Climate Science Coalition

Someone called James Renwick, described as a “climate scientist”, managed to get himself on the front page of Granny Herald. I’m not sure what a climate scientist is. We never used to have such a term – we just had geologists, physicists, biologists, chemists, etc. Continue Reading →

Visits: 1173

The Zero Carbon Bill analysis – 3

Essay 3: Climate-wise, we are the champions!

The third (pdf, 240 KB) of these eleven essays by the Hon Barry Brill on the Zero Carbon Bill has a look at the vanity factor, asking:

Who is the current gold medallist in the climate policy stakes?

From Copenhagen in 2009 to Paris in 2015 we did our best to hog the limelight by taking a lead. Now the Green Party strives to legislate for carbon neutrality by 2050 to gain the prize. But that’s all about ego—what are the facts? Continue Reading →

Visits: 153

The Zero Carbon Bill analysis – 2

Essay 2: 2050, costs vs benefits

The second (pdf, 267 KB) of these eleven essays by the Hon Barry Brill on the Zero Carbon Bill has a look at what it will cost us and what we will get in return. Barry asks the fundamental question:

Is such a near-term target worth the price?

The sacrifices in eliminating carbon emissions by 2050 will be far more painful than some undetectable heat, and far off, as it’s 30 years away. Admittedly this is a long time for government planning—usually tuned to about five years at a time—but it’s a savagely short time to create total disruption in our commercial, industrial, agricultural and other spheres—and then attempt to smooth it over. Continue Reading →

Visits: 145

Letters to the Editor

Bushfire Sense and Nonsense

quill pen

To the Editor
Climate Conversation Group

11 September 2019

Bushfires are normal events in this season in tropical and sub-tropical latitudes of the southern hemisphere — in Australia, Africa and South America. Even Captain Cook noted many fires in Eastern Australia in 1770, long before the era of “global warming” hysteria. Continue Reading →

Visits: 195

WMO Secretary-General warns against climate ‘doomsters and extremists’

The end is not nigh

Petteri Taalas

Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

London, 6 September: The General-Secretary of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says that the alarmist narrative on climate change has gone off the rails and criticised the news media for provoking unjustified anxiety. Continue Reading →

Visits: 911

Downunder wind and solar power increasingly unreliable

• Guest post •

— by Bryan Leyland
Consulting Engineer • Member, NZ Climate Science Coalition

Once upon a time New Zealand and Australia had some of the lowest electricity prices in the world. Unfortunately, imposing ill-conceived electricity “markets”, combined with the modern mania for renewable energy, has greatly increased prices in both countries. Newspaper stories on the steadily deteriorating situation in Australia abound. Continue Reading →

Visits: 108

Maverick NIWA muscles in on MetService turf

Hills? Clouds? Ocean? — from MetService website

A curious climate scandal was raised this week by one of our long-time favourite readers, biologist Dr Maggy Wassilieff (here is her comment).

Maggy reports on an article in the Sunday Star-Times by Paul Gorman, who describes the extraordinary duplication of national weather forecasting by both the MetService and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), both Crown Research Institutes (CRI).

As an aside, I must say how pleased I am to see a Stuff journalist inquiring into matters of climate—truly exciting, like spotting a unicorn.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 199

Science goes up in rain forest smoke

Source: Science Goes Up In Rain Forest Smoke – The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

You could destroy all of the world’s forests and it would hardly affect our oxygen supply. In fact you could destroy every living thing on Earth and still not dent it because our atmosphere of 20.9% oxygen is the gift of geologic time, slow to build up and we have enough to last millions of years. Yet this idea of the world’s lungs and of atmospheric oxygen needing to be refreshed and replenished, ideas unsupported by science, is everywhere.

Look how much we had to go through for science to wrench our minds free of what is “obviously true” and seek proof. Is climate science, or at least the public side of it, immune from normal scientific standards? And where are the high profile, “public” scientists setting the record straight, highlighting that the Amazon rain forests are not the lungs of the world?

Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor

BY THE WAY: To open the comment window, click the post title.

Visits: 82

The Zero Carbon Bill

Essay 1: The Zero Carbon Bill

Barry Brill has given us these eleven essays on the Zero Carbon Bill. Do sample these enjoyable pieces for yourself, with their crisp writing and clear logic. It’s illuminating to absorb Barry’s analysis of the origins of the Bill, its aims, strategies, substantial flaws, and his oh-so-pragmatic strategy to align the Bill with our international obligations without exposing our lower classes to the egregious fanaticism of the coalition’s Green climate dogma.

Barry’s first essay (pdf, 185 KB) opens with the startling news that the Bill is

not only the most expensive (by orders of magnitude) but might also be the most dangerous piece of government legislation ever placed before New Zealand’s House of Representatives. (– emphasis added)

Continue Reading →

Visits: 186

Brill’s dissection of ZCB finds good meat and rotten

James Shaw

Our dim-witted commander.

In 1994, the authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies coined the phrase “big hairy audacious goal” (BHAG, pronounced BEE-hag) to describe an organisation’s vision statement.

Barry Brill, Chairman of the NZ Climate Science Coalition and Bay of Islands lawyer, uses the term to describe the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill (ZCB).

NOTE: After this, I’ll post Barry’s eleven essays that form the backbone of his written submission. They’re must-read masterpieces distinctly capable of guiding us safely through the eating of what everyone interested in climate policy sees as a rat, as it doesn’t go far enough for anyone. I watched many videos of submissions to the Committee, and a surprisingly large number of people want to impose far stronger restrictions on their fellow citizens than the Bill would. Of course, those sceptics who question the very idea of a dangerous human influence would not restrict individual freedom at all. So the process suggests numerous futures, since proposing we change the weather invites diverse responses.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 131

Another pathetic ‘climate emergency’

Image result for wellington

Wellington – a lovely climate

Really? Are you serious? Well, prove it!! Tell us the evidence! Of course you’d first have to ask for some. Oh, and would you care to describe the effect of your silly declaration on the global temperature in 2030, 2050 and 2100?

Source: Wellington Regional Council declares climate emergency and goal to be carbon neutral by 2030 | Stuff.co.nz

The Wellington regional council has declared a climate emergency and thinks it can take action – including on its fleet of diesel buses. The region, as well as the world, has about 10 years to cut its emissions in half to change the course of climate change, the Greater Wellington Regional Council was told on Wednesday. Councillor Sue Kedgley said there had been some comments around the table about whether or not there was actually “an emergency”.

“I can’t understand how we can watch the news and not conclude that we’re in an emergency.”

Continue Reading →

Visits: 173

Do as I say …

A few weeks after saying "every action makes a difference" on climate change, Prince Harry and Meghan Markel emitted six times more emissions in two jet trips than the average Briton does in a year.

A few weeks after saying “every action makes a difference” on climate change, Prince Harry and Meghan Markel emitted six times more emissions in two jet trips than the average Briton does in a year.

Source: The Real Reason They Behave Hypocritically On Climate Change Is Because They Want To

British Royal couple Prince Harry and Princess Meghan Markle triggered widespread outrage recently after lecturing the world about climate change while flying around the world in private jets. Continue Reading →

Visits: 52

Renwick’s alarmist climate claims

UPDATE BELOW 18 June 20201

A Stuff article on Saturday by Amber-Leigh Woolf, Climate change accelerating but people can help change a world crisis, scientist says, quotes Prof James Renwick, who mentions a couple of hitherto unknown and surprising aspects of global warming.

The Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences professor said people were right to worry about the world’s future because the rate of climate change was accelerating. Climate change was affecting an ecosystem which had been in place for tens of thousands of decades, and could be destroyed within 40 years.

Continue Reading →

Visits: 342

Unscientific views of scientist Salinger

Herald headline, 4 August – Climate scientist: It’s cold now, but NZ region just saw its warmest July.

Image result for Jim Salinger climate

Prof Jim Salinger

Professor Jim Salinger, who helped create the benchmark seven-station national temperature series, the 7SS (or SSS, if you prefer), now runs a competing series using 22 hand-picked land weather stations (let’s call it the 22-station Salinger series, or 22SS). He claims July is an all-time record 1.79 °C above average, while the previous record of 1.74 °C above average in July, 1998, is demoted to second. Continue Reading →

Visits: 352

Climate Coalition conversations

The knowledgeable conversations in the NZ Climate Science Coalition are often gripping and inspire me to more research. I’d like them to find a rich appreciation among a broader audience, so let’s see how they appeal to you, the reader. This first one is from about four days ago. Some of our members prefer to remain anonymous. — RT

[Dr Jock Allison:] Please have a look at https://issuu.com/farmersweeklynz/docs/fw_22-07_issuu page 19. This is the first of a series of four articles that Harry intends to write for the NZ Farmer’s Weekly. Harry Clark is the CEO of the NZ Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, and I sent him a copy of the Allison & Sheahen paper (attached), with my assessment that anthropogenic methane was responsible for less than 1% of the world’s warming. His response was as follows. Continue Reading →

Visits: 312

Minister Shaw hijacks ZC Commission before it’s created

A comment too newsworthy not to be elevated to its own post. For background, see Shattering analysis of Shaw’s nil carbon dreams and the Brill essays at the end. Incidentally, if you’re a National MP, please raise questions in the House about this egregious move. — RT

The mooted Climate Commission does not exist and may never be authorised by Parliament. The House has referred the Bill (which proposes the establishment of such an agency) to a Select Committee, which must recommend whether the Bill be allowed to advance to a Second Reading and, if so, whether it be amended. Continue Reading →

Visits: 121

Ideology + methane needlessly threatens farm livelihoods

These emissions figures are well over ten years old. You’d think by now, for such a topical matter, the Royal Society might have found the 2017 data. Oh, and the MfE claiming agriculture produces nearly half our emissions is a scandal driven only by ideology. They should start pretending they are non-partisan: reduce methane’s atmospheric lifetime to a more realistic five or six years, remove its demented GWP of 28 times carbon dioxide’s and finally acknowledge that the country is a net carbon sink.1

refer The NZ Farmers Weekly – 22 July, 2019

The Government say farmers should pay for emissions from 2025—just six years away—so long as we devise a means of calculating those emissions.

To get their taxes altered, to reflect changes on the farm, farmers will have to provide evidence like invoices and receipts to prove their animal emissions have gone down.

But they’re having to prove they reduce what cannot be proved causes harm.

Because, which is extremely odd, the government has not produced evidence to show the emissions alter the weather, or that there’s a “climate emergency”. That can’t be fair.

The government will say (because they’ve told us before), “we listen to the IPCC.” But to that we say, “We did exactly that too, we examined what they said, and they have no evidence.”

The situation couldn’t be more pig-ignorant if you threw chicken bones on the ground and claimed to know the future. Continue Reading →

Visits: 153

Coalition comments

Insights from the
NZ Climate Science Coalition

‘Zero Carbon will need tough supervisors’

‘We’ll pick the apparatchiks before we tackle the Bill’

See this:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/deadline-approaching-climate-change-commission-nominations

James Shaw is making the gross presumption that his loony Zero Carbon Bill will pass, by calling for nominations to a Climate Change Commission BEFORE the proposed legislation establishing that commission has even started its Second Reading.
Continue Reading →

Visits: 73