God bless the yellow vests
For they serve us all [click pics to enlarge]
Dieu bénisse les gilets jaunes
Will the government please please please keep the lights on?
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 →
NZ choking in the emissions of others
Why waste money reducing our pitiful contribution?
UPDATE 01 BELOW
UPDATE 02 BELOW
Fresh off the press is a paper that takes an innovative look at the national contributions pledged under the Paris Agreement. Continue Reading →
Govt playing chicken with NZ power supply
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 →
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 →
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 → 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 →
“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice.
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 →
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 →
Submission on the Zero Carbon Bill
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 →
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 →
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 →
Ministry of Kiwi Climate Propaganda (KCP)
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 →
Zero Carbon Bill consultation
Meeting in Tauranga
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Complaint over TVNZ inaccuracy, imbalance on oil & gas ban
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 →
Unelected Greens start wrecking the economy
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 →
Yes, Minister, we’re serious
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 →
Unpacking climate alarm
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 →
Dunedin descendants threatened with Blenheim lifestyle
• 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 →
Climate Health Impacts for Dummies
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 →
Climate lawbreakers to face trial
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 →
Strange new paper on NZ climate – Part 2
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 →
Law student tilting at windmills
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 →
Greenpeace, Russell Norman barking mad
“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 →
Everything is climate change
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 →
Royal Society whitewashes climate complaint
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 →
Earth quakes again
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 →
Listen to us: we control the weather – listen
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 →
Renwick distorts evidence
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 →
Govt Ignores Science in Rush to Ratify Paris Climate Accord
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 →
NZ about to ratify Paris agreement – will they ask our opinion?
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 →
Climate deceit turns leaders witless
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 →
University-educated but doesn’t do science
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 →
Sea level lunacy slammed by Sir Tipene
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 →
Expert opinion against exponential sea level rise
UPDATE below
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.
NZ’s ‘climate change target’ 30% below 2005 levels by 2020
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.
Climate change? Yeah, nah
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 →
Global warming the Wicked Witch of the West
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.
Assisting the Minister fight the climate
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 →
‘Honey’ calls down a woman’s wrath
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 →
Students desire knowledge
and they will find it
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 →
Curbing Fallow’s emissions and correcting his maths
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 →
The ocean according to Renwick
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 →
Problems with Christchurch
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.
Renowden a scaring warmist
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.
Nasty stuff
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.
James Renwick has confirmed by email that he did not blame global warming for the recent drought. 10:00 pm 16 May 2013
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 →
Policy: politicians write it but scientists incite it
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 →
Lord Monckton complains to VUW
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 →