Here is a curious thing.
Since 2007 our population has risen by what seems a healthy 14.8%, our emissions of carbon dioxide are out of step in rising only by 2.8% and our per capita emissions have fallen by 10%.
Our energy efficiency has improved. Continue Reading →
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 →
The following is my submission in your name on this bill that threatens to mutilate our economy. Much more could have been said; much less might have been preferable. But let rip, kind readers. Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Known as the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), but given a new name to highlight the lack of science, fear of dissent and unfaltering righteousness that characterises totalitarian regimes. But whence arises my discordant denunciation? Continue Reading →
RT
I’ll be there — if you see me, please come and say hi; I’d love to meet you. Come along with all those questions you’ve never had a chance to ask. This is the MfE—they know the truth, right? Take advantage! Join me as I gang up on them!
Details below. Continue Reading →
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 →
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.
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.
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 →
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.
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 →
The Complaints Committee,
Television New Zealand
One News, 12 April: Oil & Gas Exploration Ban
Both news readers in this programme claimed that the purpose of the Government’s ban on new offshore exploration for oil and gas was to cut New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions and was necessary because New Zealand signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement. Continue Reading →
Gareth Hughes, Green Party Energy Spokesman
There was a triumphal email in my inbox this morning from Gareth Hughes, buck-toothed saviour of the world. Continue Reading →
Here’s a letter I sent yesterday in our name to the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw.
It opens what could be a lengthy campaign. We will ask the top climate-anxious institutions in New Zealand the same thing: what is the proof of a dangerous human influence on global warming? Continue Reading →
Auckland Harbour – little change
The Prime Minister says combating climate change will be the defining characteristic of her term of office. Ms Ardern sees this question as being more urgent than all other economic, environmental and social issues – even the alleviation of child poverty, to which she is headily committed. How did this topic gain this ascendancy? Continue Reading →
• Guest post •
— by Barry Brill, Chairman of the NZ Climate Science Coalition
The Royal Society’s Human Health Impacts report forecasts that average air temperatures in New Zealand could rise by between 2.5°C and 5.0°C by the year 2100 – a mean of 3.75°C.
Let’s take an actual example. Continue Reading →
There are important things to say about the NZ Royal Society’s deceptive and alarmist report on human health impacts from climate change, released last month.
The eight-page report sets out the strongest available case for New Zealanders to be fearful of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW). But we don’t find the case at all strong or at all scary – so we hope everybody will read and understand it. Continue Reading →
Dr Russel Norman, ex-MP, will be tried for interfering with the operation of the Amazon Warrior in an oil exploration protest off the east coast of the North Island. Judge Nevin Dawson set the trial date for April next year. Serves Norman right, of course, after Dawson J last June offered diversion to the three defendants and they refused it. Tough. Continue Reading →
Franz Josef glacier, New Zealand
The warmsters have been squawking at us since the IPCC was founded in 1988 for using abundant, affordable hydrocarbons to power engines and to create all kinds of materials, from the ordinary (like tar and ink) to the fantastical (like heart valves and aspirin). They demand we stop drilling anywhere, stop mining anywhere and stop creating affordable products to improve and save lives. But this is blinkered madness oozing from the dystopian IPCC stink-tank.
Continue Reading →
Sarah Thomson, a law student, is taking the government to court.
In filing an application for judicial review she hopes to get the government to pledge an emissions reduction target that is, in her words, both “lawful and rational.” In other words, larger — so the world might be properly saved. Miss Thomson recently described her reasoning at The Spinoff. In her Coal Action article (the web site is broken and doesn’t accept comments), Sarah explains: Continue Reading →
“Why did you jump into the sea in front of the large ship, Mr Norman?” asked the judge.*
“It was a peaceful uprising, m’lud, no more than that. Continue Reading →
Drought Gisborne 2017
Crikey! Rachel Stewart admits she lost her rag, but her wrathful polemic is completely out of touch with the real world. Her froth-flecked fulmination is a fine example of a bible-bashing religious rant aimed at sinners. Get the faithful moving: climate change is a mission; all hands on deck. Continue Reading →
In July 2016, Professor Tim Naish and Professor James Renwick embarked on a whistle-stop tour of 11 towns and cities giving a public slide presentation they called Ten by Ten: Climate Change (“Ten things you didn’t know about climate change”). Senior scientists with the NZ Climate Science Coalition raised concerns about the accuracy of the material being presented and on 26 August, before the tour was over, they lodged a complaint (pdf, 2 MB) with the Royal Society of New Zealand.
This blog reported the complaint on 28 August. On or about November 23, a Confidential Draft Report came in from Professors Tennant, Scott and Watts, of the Royal Society Professional Standards and Ethics Panel. Now the the Final Report of the Panel (the Report) has been released, received by the complainants on December 7. Continue Reading →
We’re a bunch of shaky isles, that’s for sure. The great gods that support us just shrugged again and things were broken. Continue Reading →
A conference is under way in Auckland. The Climate Change and Business Conference has brought together the great and the good from New Zealand and overseas. Yesterday and today, these fine people are lending their personal dignity to the completely senseless notion that we control the weather.
Propaganda doesn’t come in any more blatant form than this, when an idea of no value is propagated by eminent speakers. But is anyone listening? Continue Reading →
Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone
During an interview a few days ago, Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone would not say if she believed the earth was warming due to man-made pollution, saying only: “Gosh, that’s a very contentious debate.”
Dr James Renwick, a professor of physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington, has slammed Crone’s statement. “The climate is changing and it is due to human activity and that is very clear from all sorts of lines of evidence,” he said. “To say that it’s very contentious suggests a real lack of understanding of the area.” The evidence showed that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming, Renwick said. “To try and say that we’re not sure is very backward thinking.” [emphasis added]
But that’s just not the case. Continue Reading →
The NZ Climate Science Coalition just issued a press release.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Zealand’s rush to sign the Paris Climate Change Accord ignores science and will damage the economy, according to the chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, Hon Barry Brill, himself a former Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Energy in a National Government. Continue Reading →
Paula Bennett says the Government intends to concrete the Paris agreement into place by the end of the year.
She will “within weeks” announce terms of reference and the members of an expert group that will help implement our transition to lower carbon emissions. They hope our trading friends will be mightily pleased by our righteous eagerness to save the planet. Or so they imply. Continue Reading →
Donna Laframboise picks up on Steven Goddard’s observation on the solemn pronouncement of the G7 industrial leaders last year. They agreed to “phase out fossil fuel use” by the end of the century. Continue Reading →
This today from Barry Brill, who saw it on Scoop.
Law student sues climate minister over poor emissions targets
A 24-year-old Hamilton woman is suing the Government over its emissions reduction targets, saying they do not go far enough to tackle climate change. Continue Reading →
Sir Tipene O’Regan.
from a National Business Review article of 1 September posted on Facebook:
“Sir Tipene rails against madness of Christchurch sea rise plan” by Chris Hutching
Resentment is growing among property owners in Christchurch and residents are organising themselves since the council announced it would tag 18,000 coastal properties with warnings of inundation from rising sea levels, severely depressing land values without good cause. Continue Reading →
Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.
David Beach sent a letter to the Christchurch Press published 4 August, 2015, which contains grievous errors. Whatever he intends by the use of the term ‘exponential’, we can only take it in its usual sense of increasing at a more and more rapid rate, or a rate expressed by a mathematical exponent. His salient point is this:
First, the 1m figure is absolutely the best case for sea level rise. The worst case (expressed by an expert team led by Dr Hansen) is 5m. Second, it does not stop at whatever figure turns out to be true, as it increases exponentially.
Wahoo! It looks really low (though it should be nil), but how much will it cost?
The government has announced a new climate change target that aims to reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2020 and a review this year of the existing Emissions Trade Scheme as part of its policy mix to meet the new targets.
This headline says mere scepticism means denying that climate changes—not that you have legitimate, unanswered questions over the models, the mechanisms or the means. Morons.
Still, New Zealand has one of the highest rates of climate change scepticism in the developed world. A wonderful finding. Continue Reading →
The beach at St Clair, Dunedin, in a bit of breeze. Photo ODT
On Monday came a story of blatant disregard of nature’s power. A woman walks a small dog on a beach pounded by violent waves. A large wave swamps them and the dog is swept away.
Source: ‘Rogue wave’ sweeps dog from owner – Otago Daily Times
Passers-by watched in horror as a “rogue wave” surged up to engulf a woman and her dog walking on a Dunedin beach yesterday.
Sent today, 20 May 2015
It is a great irony that you should call this a “climate change” target, for the science tells us New Zealand doesn’t change the climate. It is a fact that, were we to reduce our emissions even to zero, thus achieving the greatest possible reduction, though destroying our entire productive capacity, there would be no resulting change in the average global surface temperature. Continue Reading →
According to the Herald:
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority boss Roger Sutton said: “Hugs, jokes … I do do those things, and I’ve hurt somebody with that behaviour and I’m very, very sorry about that.”
Another man bullied into apologising for being a man. Continue Reading →
Amid all the world-wide signs of a major sea-change in climate thinking (yes, that’s a pun) comes the encouraging news that New Zealand university students prefer the truth over activist drivel. Why did we ever doubt them? Continue Reading →
The Herald explains that Brian Fallow is its Economics Editor, but he belly-aches and pontificates about climate change more than anyone.
I suppose he must be an economist, since he’s divertingly keen to discuss all kinds of fascinating financial and structural details of transforming New Zealand society but little concerned with evidence that might justify it.
The result is he carps noisily on a ruinous, indefensible crusade. He insists the country spend time and tax “adjusting” to a “low-carbon” economy, though he freely admits we won’t thereby affect the climate even minutely.
Worse, he won’t say why we should do it. Not really why — not scientifically, plausibly tell us the necessity for it.
Let me highlight this error of judgement by rebutting a couple of his latest points. Continue Reading →
One of our favourite Kiwi climate scientists has again made alarmist climate predictions.
The predictions come from the IPCC, but I’m sure Professor James Renwick takes responsibility for repeating them (I mean, he must have satisfied himself over their accuracy). He frequently cites the IPCC’s predictions but keeps quiet when they’re wrong. For example, when they and their computer models forecast strong warming over the last 17 years instead of the lack of warming we observe. Continue Reading →
From the earthquakes which devastated its previously stable landscape and brought down its vibrant CBD to horrific repeated flooding, seemingly interminable planning for a new cathedral and a firm civic belief in future catastrophic man-made sea-level rise, Christchurch certainly has problems.
They present the devil’s own difficulties if you’re living through them, but whether you’re trying to deal with them, leave them behind, or you’re simply looking on curiously from afar, you can learn about them here.
I haven’t seen much lately of Gareth Renowden’s climate writing, although I came across him burbling recently about US activist Bill McKibben.
Today I read Renowden’s post at The Daily Blog complaining about Rodney Hide’s NBR article. In it, Rodney criticises Dr James Renwick for comments Renwick made during this interview for TV1’s Q+A programme.
In the Daily Blog post, Renowden is distinctly combative, immediately smearing Rodney as ‘irrelevant’ and ‘rabid.’ It’s nasty stuff, but Renowden seems inured to the dirt he shovels. There was nothing in Rodney’s article to deserve this treatment. It’s unclear why Renowden bothers with such an “irrelevant” commentator but comparing Rodney with a mad dog is as outrageous as it is patently untrue.
In the end Renowden shreds his own credibility by inviting Rodney to join the warmists, claiming rather feebly ‘we need all hands on deck’ — as though the rabidly irrelevant would chance his welcome.
Disagreeing further with Rodney’s article, Gareth makes a point I cannot ignore: “There’s been no warming for 17 years, apparently. Tell that to the Greenland ice sheet, or the Arctic sea ice. Tell that to the warming oceans. Global surface temperatures may not be shooting up as fast as in the recent past, but heat continues to accumulate in the climate system. Rapid climate change is here, now.” Continue Reading →
It’s hard to know if a reader, Simon, was being serious when he said “Scientists don’t set policy either, politicians do that” because it’s blindingly obvious that scientists don’t keep their hands off policy. They constantly agitate because — surprise — they constantly need funding.
That’s the very reason we’re in this climate change mess, because politicians alone couldn’t have done it. A few smart leaders might have come up with the idea of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) justifying deep government interference in our lives, but they had to be assisted by publicly-funded scientists who became heavily involved in supporting policy proposals, even to the point of activism.
At all levels of science and of government, scientists have spent thirty years providing assistance of varying magnitude to politicians; it’s not only cynics who remark that scientists made friends with politicians only to safeguard their funding. Continue Reading →
These documents posted two days ago on the NZ Climate Science Coalition’s web site record Christopher Monckton’s complaint against Victoria University of Wellington for refusing him access to its campus, for dishonesty and for slandering him.
Document 1. Lord Monckton’s complaint, repeated below.
Document 2. Is CO2 mitigation cost-effective? A paper to be published soon.
Document 3. Professor Boston’s fraudulent graph. Referring to the professor’s use in 2008 of a faulty IPCC graph from the AR4, 2007.
Here is the full text of his complaint, addressed to the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh.
11 April 2013
Professor Pat Walsh, Vice-Chancellor,
Victoria University of Wellington.
Sir,
Dishonesty and other serious misconduct by three staff
I should be grateful if you would investigate dishonesty and other serious breaches of your university’s code of conduct on the part of three staff. Continue Reading →
The Green Party today revealed that the National Government is allowing mining companies to search for minerals on our most protected conservation land.
To reassure New Zealanders that our National Parks and most precious conservation land won’t ever be open for mining, the Government should stop allowing minerals prospecting and exploration there.
via Our most precious wilderness not safe from mining | Greenweek, the newsletter
They say 50,000 people wanted to tell 4 million what to do. Without even discussing whether to measure the value of having reserves against the cost of locking away their natural resources.
Actually, our wilderness is not so precious that we’d give up prosperity to keep a particular piece of it. That’s taking the principle too far. We can replace a piece of any old reserve with another piece somewhere else. There’s plenty of it. Look at a map. Continue Reading →
Auckland’s transport system is clogged up, and as it’s our largest city, the whole country will benefit from freeing it up.
The solutions already exist and are achievable. Please join me, and our transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter, this Sunday afternoon at the Green Party Auckland office to launch our new transport campaign Reconnect Auckland.
Green transport solutions, like the City Rail Link, will help build a smart, green city of the future.
via Free up Auckland | Greenweek, the newsletter
Whenever new lanes, tunnels and bridges are proposed to accommodate more vehicles and alleviate Auckland’s transport woes, the Greens oppose them, even though it always becomes faster to get around.
Now they argue that the “whole country” will benefit from the “green” solution of a few more buses and trains, seeming not to realise that’s also the aim of the extra motorways and tunnels. Also seeming not to understand that public transport is no solution.
That’s because we already have private transport, which we control. We can already go wherever we want to, whenever we like.
A bus or a train cannot take a person where they want to be, because nobody (beyond a few sex “workers”) has business at a bus stop or railway station. Sure, in the city there’s no difference between a short walk to the office from the bus stop or the car park and it’s a trivial thing. But we’re talking about every trip, not only into a crowded city, but also around the suburbs and even, oddly, into the far more spacious countryside, where no bus can serve everyone. Each of these trips must negotiate the perilously crowded main roads in and around the city.
Importantly, buses and trains don’t use the most efficient route, or go at the right time, so they are more expensive — and less convenient — than a private car.
But don’t try telling the Greens that people insist on going where they want to go, right when it suits them.
Because the Greens know little about serving the people and don’t seem to care.
Big roads and private cars are the “greenest” of transport solutions, because they keep the big dangerous bus monsters off our roads.
Today, the NZ Herald announced:
New Zealand’s climate is forecast to warm by at least 1°C by 2050, while the average rate for the world has been put at more than 2°C.
via Warming likely boost to vineyards – NZ Herald.
The article said it was good news for wine. James Renwick was asked to comment and thought stonefruit and pipfruit wouldn’t suit warmer conditions and “other potential negatives included more floods and cyclones, sea level rises, and more plant and insect pests.” (There’s always someone with a gloomy view, isn’t there?)
But this move in temperatures is hard to reconcile with what we know. Continue Reading →
The NZ Herald has given Lord Monckton the floor to allow him to rebut the ridiculous criticisms of him by a bunch of so-called Kiwi scientists. Or perhaps it was a bunch of merely shallow scientists who were journalistically ambushed and their comments taken out of context. Who knows?
The culprit was the leftist idealogue employed by the APNZ as the “journalist” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) Kurt Bayer. I notice Bayer’s byline, which accompanied the original article, has been removed from today’s story, no doubt as part of his punishment for treating a subject with complete, premeditated disdain. His only concern was clearly the advancement of a private agenda.
Under the heading “Climate change sceptic rejects criticism as ‘hate speech'” the NZ Herald has published an APNZ response to Lord Monckton’s complaint about the APNZ’s woefully innaccurate and shamefully unbalanced article in last Tuesday’s Herald.
Today’s article says:
Lord Christopher Monckton has rejected criticism of his views about climate change as his public speaking tour of New Zealand continues.
It then goes on to quote much of Christopher’s remarkably moderately-phrased written complaint verbatim.
Well done, them.
Christopher’s well-attended presentation last night in Northcote was stunning. I look forward to more of the same in central Auckland tonight.
Lord Monckton officially began his tour of New Zealand on Easter Monday with meetings in Northland, and a visit to Auckland is due to begin tomorrow (Thursday).
You can see Lord Monckton’s itinerary here in the menu above, or at Climate Realists.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) seems to believe that we’re causing global warming and we must be stopped.
The alternative is that they’re really trying to save us money. But it’s impossible to accept that they really want the best for us. As the old joke puts it: “I’m from the government; I’m here to help you.” Ha ha.
EECA spends about $130,000,000 a year (p48). In the year ended June 2012 the actual expenditure was $123,016,000 against a budget of $155,761,000 from revenue of $127,926,000 (budget was $154,600,000). I don’t yet know where all the money goes. Through the “Energy Spot” they tell us we spend too much on electricity, although they don’t mention that could be due to constant price hikes from the “national” power stations our fathers and grandfathers proudly paid for, rather than actual increases in the cost of generating electricity. [The original comment here said that our power stations now have private owners, but that’s wrong. The shareholder is our government. My apologies. – RT] They also nag us nightly to use less petrol and they hand out government subsidies for biodiesel and an experimental wave power device. Continue Reading →
Our friend Warwick Hughes draws our attention to a section of the AR5 which features the Maoris. Not New Zealanders, note, but Maoris.
In it, the IPCC expresses particular concern for Maoris, who, they predict, will be disadvantaged by the progressively worsening effects of anthropogenic global warming. They claim that Maoris’ “choices and actions continue to be constrained by … inequalities in political representation.”
Warwick raises his eyebrows at this and asks whether climate change is a hot topic in Maori society. But the allegation of inequality is so far from true that we can only jeer. Continue Reading →
