Study shows NZ has been cooling for 26 years

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MY APOLOGIES to Barry Brill. I mistakenly published this under my own name. Now I understand why compliments were offered to me; so let them be his, they’re well deserved!  – Richard Treadgold

Franz Josef glacier — simply massive.

A lot of people know that New Zealand’s official weather data show that this country’s mean temperature has remained remarkably stable for at least 150 years.

So, a handful of government scientists (whose fame and fortune depend upon scary warming) have spent years looking for evidence that the historical data is so wrong that “adjustments” are essential. In this quest, the most fertile ground has long seemed to be the retreat of New Zealand’s numerous glaciers, particularly in the Southern Alps. Continue Reading →

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NZ sideswipes the UN migrant crusade

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The United Nations was formed in 1945. The speeches must have been less than rivetting, and the candid body language on display makes a fascinating study. Click to enlarge and pass a little time exploring.

Our favourite Canadian commentator Donna Laframboise credits New Zealand with  compounding the UN’s year-end climate and migration gloom.

If you’re a UN bureaucrat, recent weeks have been full of disappointment.

Continue Reading →

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New Zealand small, world large

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Ministry for the Environment: Please explain why our portion of the ocean is not mentioned as a sink in our emissions inventory.

Raised from a comment to a post, this mathematical exposé of our ruling coalition’s wilful blindness to New Zealand’s puny emissions could tickle your fancy, or you may think it cheeky; let me know. – RT

— by Don Graham

“As an avid “man-driven CO2 is going to cook us all” denier, I have explored as a matter of interest New Zealand’s effect on the atmospheric level of CO2 and wrote this article several years back. I emailed it to someone in NIWA and surprisingly did not receive a reply—well, unsurprisingly!
– DG

The problem

New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (within the red lines) is the world’s fourth-largest.

New Zealand maintains the right to explore and exploit the seabed and water column within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and I cannot see why we should not be allowed to exploit its carbon-sequestering ability, especially since New Zealand is practically unique in having a large EEC and a small population. This is a natural CO2 sink, and we should take economic advantage of it as a CO2 mitigating component. Continue Reading →

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Dieu bénisse les gilets jaunes

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God bless the yellow vests

For they serve us all  [click pics to enlarge]

The French are turning up in their thousands and hundreds of thousands. They’ve had enough of the aloof, out-of-touch President Macron, his electricity and gas price increases and they disbelieve the climate scare, so when he hiked fuel prices the people finally took to the streets. Continue Reading →

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Will the government please please please keep the lights on?

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Barry Brill and I condemn the wilful political blindness that contemplates destroying our energy security and risking dry-year blackouts by shutting down the last thermal power plant merely to win polite applause from other nations. Meanwhile, those same nations are brazenly operating a gigantic fleet of 3700 coal-fired power plants and building another 1900.

The Huntly gas and coal-fired power station is NZ’s largest thermal generator. With its coal generation halved to 500 MW and total capacity including gas now 953 MW, or about 5000 GWh/year, Huntly can still provide about 12% of our annual consumption. Genesis intends to remove the remaining coal units by 2022, and there’s an uncertain future for the gas units since the Prime Minister, without consulting interested parties such as the industry or the electorate, banned gas exploration.

Are New Zealand politicians naive? Babes in the wood? Country yokels who don’t understand realpolitik? Continue Reading →

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Govt playing chicken with NZ power supply

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Bryan Leyland, Consulting Engineer, warns of blackouts

Electricity wholesale prices on the spot market have averaged 25 cents/kWh (four times the normal 7 cents) for the last three weeks because the New Zealand power system is in an appalling state, with severe shortages of water, gas, coal and generating plant. Continue Reading →

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The Greens’ strategy for industry and commerce

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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 →

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Royal Society must explain refusal to justify climate policy

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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 →
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Royal Society of NZ rejects tenets of science over global warming

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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 →

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Kiwis complacent on global warming

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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 →

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Greens hail the defeat of prosperity but answer this

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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 →

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Zero Carbon meeting — science loses

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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 →

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A goal breathtakingly scant

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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 →

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

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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 →

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Heroic NZ emission cuts versus Chinese colossus

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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 →

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Complaint over TVNZ inaccuracy, imbalance on oil & gas ban

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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 →

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Unpacking climate alarm

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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 →

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Dunedin descendants threatened with Blenheim lifestyle

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• 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 →

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Climate Health Impacts for Dummies

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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 →

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Climate lawbreakers to face trial

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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 →

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Strange new paper on NZ climate – Part 2

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Franz Josef glacier, New Zealand

Stupefying reversal after all the propaganda

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 →

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Law student tilting at windmills

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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 →

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Everything is climate change

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Drought Gisborne 2017

Drought Gisborne 2017

That’s religion

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 →

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Royal Society whitewashes climate complaint

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rs-logo-490In 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 →

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Listen to us: we control the weather – listen

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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 →

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Renwick distorts evidence

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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 →

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Govt Ignores Science in Rush to Ratify Paris Climate Accord

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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 →

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NZ about to ratify Paris agreement – will they ask our opinion?

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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 →

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Climate deceit turns leaders witless

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This piece is from a note I took nearly a year ago, but the message remains fresh and compelling. – RT

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 →

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Sea level lunacy slammed by Sir Tipene

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Sir Tipene O'Regan

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 →

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Expert opinion against exponential sea level rise

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UPDATE below

Letter to Chch Press 4 Aug 2015

Letter to Christchurch Press from David Beach, 4 Aug 2015. Click to enlarge.

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.

Continue Reading →

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NZ’s ‘climate change target’ 30% below 2005 levels by 2020

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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.

Source: Government sets climate change target to reduce CO2 emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2020 | The National Business Review

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Global warming the Wicked Witch of the West

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Wave takes dog, owner yells global warming

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.

Continue Reading →

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Assisting the Minister fight the climate

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Setting New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change target

Submission to MfE by Climate Conversation Group

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 →

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‘Honey’ calls down a woman’s wrath

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Not climate conversation, but assuredly the climate of conversation

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 →

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Curbing Fallow’s emissions and correcting his maths

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Brian Fallow

Brian Fallow, Herald Economics Editor.

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 →

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The ocean according to Renwick

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Prof James Renwick

Prof James Renwick appeared on 3 News sporting a classy waistcoat with an earnest expression.

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 →

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Problems with Christchurch

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open thread

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.

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