The peculiar tribe of climate change deniers have two major characteristics as far as I’m concerned.
They prefer to avoid understanding science to the point that they don’t read the actual science papers that they refer to. So when they refer to a paper you can pretty well guarantee that the one person who read it didn’t really understand it and simply extracted a few words out of the scientific context.
Having gained a invalid idea, they will then proceed to inflate it (while never linking to it as that might help people making their own judgement) by each blogger misquoting what the previous blogger/journalist said (also usually without links). The end result of this is a story that has no relationship to the actual paper that they are referencing floating around the nets steadily inflating like an alarmed blowfish.
It is all rather hilarious to watch exactly how stupid people can expend so much effort to not read the source document and to try to understand the actual science in it. If they spent even a fraction of the time reading science that they expend propagating self-referencing bullshit, then those of us to actually do read and understand science wouldn’t get so frustrated with them. But it appears that your average climate change denier (CCD) is far more concerned with inflated gossip than actually understanding science.
Bryan Walker at Hot-Topic points out this great recent example of both traits in “It isn’t the sun”. The video on the same topic by PotHoler pokes some gentle fun at the inflated failings of CCDs.
The recent CERN paper in Nature on cosmic rays and cloud formation has caused considerable excitement in the denialist world. Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Postdeclared “The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun – not human activities – as the controller of climate on Earth”. For what the paper really said readers can turn to the welcome and discussion it received on RealClimate. There’s also a useful response to Solomon’s claim on SkepticalScience.
It’s a complex picture, but today I came across this short video which sets it out straightforwardly and with a light touch. (Thanks to The Carbon Brief website.) Put together by Australian science journalist Potholer, it is both an explanation of the science and a picture of how misinterpretations travel in the denialist community.
I’ve come to the (likely unpopular) conclusion that climate change over the next 100 years is not the probable Big Problem facing global human civilisation; instead, irrecoverable fossil fuel energy depletion over the next 20 years is.
This is also a logical conclusion from AFKTT’s statements that the global economy is only a few years away from significant retrenchment due to peak oil and various energy crises.
IF that occurs, major reductions in economic activity and fossil fuel availability will become the norm. Global carbon output will fall, and fall hard, without external intervention (carbon taxes, ETS’s etc), Kyoto Protocol or no.
I’ve come to the (likely unpopular) conclusion that climate change over the next 100 years is not the probable Big Problem facing global human civilisation
I agree. I think there are much more immediate problems. I was reminded of this by an article by Prince Charles (of all people). While everyone is arguing about how many metres (or fractions thereof) the sea level may or may not be by the time most of us are dead, in the meantime:
– critical forests are being irretreivably lost
– water systems are being destroyed
– fish stocks continue to plummet
– soil and arable land is being lost at increasing rates
– food production is becoming more costly
– etc etc etc
I suspect these issues in combination will be more immediate than “climate change” as popularly conceived.
Yes but you miss a crucial point here – as every enviromentalist finds out the second that they start to campaign on any of these issues is that they are all interlinked and luckily the solutions to one problem also handily are often helpful or the solution to the other problems listed. Including climate change.
CV – you are forgetting that we still have a LOT of coal and now frozen undersea methane deposits to extract. All that carbon will be used if we don’t stop use of fossil fuels and that will seal humanities fate.
And QT – YOU might be dead but I won’t and neither will my children or grandchildren and their children… I actually want to hand them a livable planet and a good life. Thanks. 🙂
By supply I mean production, in case I confused you. Check the OPEC monthly Reports, iea or eia reports. Not sure how you can say it’s too low when it is higher than your maximum possible output. Are we comparing the same thing?
QSF: Sea level is the least important or severe of the issues from climate change. Probably why you picked it as your only effect.
In your list I can’t see any that will not be made far worse with climate change. Quite simply we are totally reliant on a stable climate and have non real idea of the risks of being in an changing climate.
For instance, if you’d care to engage your brain for a second, just think of the effects on food production costs if the frequency of tropical storms impacting doubled in the next two decades. Based on what we know about climate, this is quite a feasible effect. But we don’t have enough information to build it into the IPCC models because we will only find out after it has happened.
Well CV I’d agree peak oil will bite us in the butt soon, but climate change will crush us inevitably.
The difference between the two issues is that climate change has very large delays and momentum built into the system. Once we go past climate tipping points there is nothing anyone can do to respond …except sit back and not enjoy the ride.
Not really. You are dealing with a question of relative risk.
With fossil fuels the effects of rising costs are relatively well known. The costs will rise as they get progressively harder to extract until a point is reached that an alternative becomes viable. This will almost certainly cause recessions to depressions as new economic equilibrium are reached.
We already know what most of the alternative technologies are and even have some ideas on the price points of using them on a large scale. We have already seen most of the effects of changing energy costs in the economies. The main real effect at the fundamentals level is that it will drive up the cost of food production.
The biggest unknown risks involved are that someone starts a widespread war.
The problem with climate change is that the effects are unknown. The IPCC projections are simply the best minimum guesses based on what we already know. We have already pumped enough greenhouse gases into the the atmosphere to radically change the climate.
We simply haven’t had another planet to try out the effects of widespread climate modification on so when the IPCC does a report they base it on what is known will happen – not what could happen. Noone knows where the effects of what is already in the atmosphere and oceans will lead. While it is feasible for scientific morons (like DPF) to purportedly treat IPCC projections like gospel, no one with any understanding of the unknown risks in the IPCC would do anything except treat them as the most optimistic possible projections.
The risks are that we have no idea when the effects will manifest, no idea how great the effects will be, and no real idea of the impacts on our civilization. We have never seen it before as a civilization at anything like the same scale. The most extreme climate shifts we have in our history as a agricultural species were a fraction of what we know we’re going to get in climate effects and were quite localized.
The difference in risk is that we have no real idea of what climate change will do to our food production even in the next couple of decades, whereas we do with increasing costs of energy.
This is at a time when we have the largest population our species has ever had. The only thing we are sure about is that we will have an increased frequency of extreme weather events – exactly the type of thing that farmers fear the most.
We’re going to get those effects sometime this century. The evidence is that we are getting them now at levels of statistical significance. We don’t know if these types of weather events are just the start or if they are as bad as they’re going to get.
Now we could get lucky and the main effects hold off for a century until we are over peak population. But I think the current evidence is that we’ll see strong climate effects that affect food production in the next couple of decades.
‘With fossil fuels the effects of rising costs are relatively well known. The costs will rise as they get progressively harder to extract until a point is reached that an alternative becomes viable. ‘
That is simply not true.
There are no ‘alternatives’ to fossil fuels. Nothing available on this planet matches the energy density, quantity and EROEI of oil and coal. No combination of so-called alternatives can support even a tiny fraction of present human arrangements. I susgget you rewatch Albert Bartlett’s ‘Arithmentic Population and Energy’ and Chris Martenson’s ‘Crash Course’. And read TEW.
It took nature hundreds of millions of years to sequester all that carbon safely underground and generate the stable climate conditions that made civilisation possible, but humans have managed to transfer a large portion of that carbon back into the atmosphere (and the oceans) in just 200 years.
I didn’t say that they had to be as efficient or as flexible to replace. What they need to be is as functional at some level of cost.
For instance and just looking in our recent past at fundamentals. In the agricultural area in the 19th century and early 20th there were steam powered tractors. In transport there were steam powered buses and lorries as well as steam and electric trains and electric trams. Steam powered and wind powered ships (imagine the latter with some serious computer controlled sail area pushing large container craft).
Sure it’d be hard to do it without touching fossil fuels, but those are just old tech that we already know has already worked with replaceable resources like hydro and biomatter. Then of course there are all of the new tech that has been tried but never been in full blown use because it is too expensive relative to a extracted fossil fuel alternative.
My point was that all of these are known technologies that could be used at a more expensive cost point and we have some idea of the risk levels. However the effects of extensive climate change on our society and civilization is largely unknown especially in the area of food production. There are going to be unexpected gotchas in how that plays out. At present it looks like the first unpleasant surprise is how fast the frequency of extreme weather events is rising.
We know we cannot go back to steam engines because we cannot burn coal and there isn’t enough wood (one of the reasons coal was adopted).
We could have wooden sailing ships, but building more than just a few of those would be a struggle now that so much of the hardwood has gone and has been replaced by pine which is totally unsuitable for ship construction.
‘wind powered ships (imagine the latter with some serious computer controlled sail area pushing large container craft).’
Why would we want to do that? Global trade arrangements will disintegrate fairly soon. We will soon be primarily concerned with day to day survival at the local level (as has been the case for 99% of humanity for 99.99% of human history).
‘replaceable resources like hydro and biomatter’
We may be able to keep hydro running for a while after the global industrial system collapses, but there is no evidence we can maintain such systems in the long term and a lot of evidence we can’t, e.g.
When you mention biomatter, that could mean horses eating hay. If you are suggesting making alcohol from corn or beet etc. that will almost certainly not work. Dr David Fridley spoke about ‘The Myth of Biofuels’, several years ago
Why would we go to wood for ships when we can still produce steel?
We may be able to keep hydro running for a while after the global industrial system collapses, but there is no evidence we can maintain such systems in the long term and a lot of evidence we can’t, e.g.
Hydro-power was first built in the 19th century so chances are we’ll be able to keep it going. Would it be the same as what was built in the 1970s? Probably not as we’ll most likely go to in stream systems rather than damns.
‘This is at a time when we have the largest population our species has ever had. The only thing we are sure about is that we will have an increased frequency of extreme weather events – exactly the type of thing that farmers fear the most.’
No wonder people say the word blog so derogatorily. Perhaps it should be a function of scientific papers and reports to have an even more succinct conclusion for all those bloggers that have the attention span of an ant. CCD = Cerebral Cognitive Disease.
The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the
implications became far worse than we had individually realized. This is a very
serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at
consequences for humankind that will!impact in our lifetime, and worse, our
children’s and generations beyond that.”
QSF at it again, living up to his arrogant title. Yesterday Krugman was cross, today it’s eco-warrior Charles who gets backhanded: ‘an article by Prince Charles (of all people).’
That depends what you mean – science isn’t so much fair and balanced as competitive and cut-throat. Nature is the only authority – and it is neither fair nor subject to notions of ‘balance’.
As with climate change, the Internet is awash with misinformation concerning oil. The peak in extraction of conventional oil occurred as two sub-peaks in 2005 and 2006. Extraction of conventional oil is in severe decline in the vast majority of regions of the world.
However, the total liquids has been bouncing along the ‘bumpy platuea’ since 2006. Total liquids includes unconventional oil -deep water, condensates derived from extraction of natural gas, oil extracted from tar sands etc., even from coal, and some people have the cheek to include ethanol derived from the fermentation of corn as ‘oil’.
Some say the world has been using more oil than has been extracting over the past year or so, the difference being made up by draw-down of stocks. The ongoing financial mess and unemployment in much of the developed wolrd is depressing demand and is depressing oil prices.
What is irrefutable is that the Energy Return(ed) On Energy Invested continues to fall. Such is the desperation to prop up present industrial arangements that oil companies are signing up to explore and develop potential oil-bearing regions in the Arctic: they are looking forward to the meltdown of the Arctic, simply as a mechanism to aid resource extraction! Sea level rise and climate chaos do not factor into energy companies’ accounts.
The other important factor to watch is the Export-Land Model: many oil exporting regions have rising domestic demand which means that export supply is being eaten into by depletion and by domestic consumption.
With respect to climate change denial, it is worth repeating that oil, cement and automotive companies have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into funding misinformation and confusion. And it is still happening.
Although some comments have noted the inevitability of a reduction in CO2 emissions from burning oil as we slide down the peak oil curve, they have failed to note that Global Dimming -the reduction in light reaching the ground due to industrial ‘smog’ in the atmosphere- will probably decline dramatically as we fall off the oil depletion curve. Less Global Dimming = more warming and more triggering of positive feedbacks.
Coming generations are being totally screwed by the small sector of humanity that is currently misleading and misgoverning us.
As far as I am concerned there are only two issues worth discussing:
1. How do we prevent mass starvation when the industrial food system collapses (due to peak oil climate instability, soil loss, lack of fertilisers, lack of fresh water etc)?
2. How do we prevent abrupt climate change ( a rapid surge in temperature in a short time) rendering the Earth largely uninhabitable in a few decades?
(The matter of acidification of the oceans is also of huge concern but, as I point out in TEW, higher ocean temperatures could well drive CO2 out of the oceans, exacerbating the temperature predicament. Others would say that putting a halt to the Sixth Great Extinction Event is more important than the fate of humantiy.)
I also point out in TEW, these issues are never discussed in mainstream, and those who raise them are ignored, lampooned, marginalised etc. This is because society was hijacked by banksters corporations long ago, of course, and they are only interested in maintianing their particular Ponzi schemes.
In the meantime, ‘idiots’ are given plenty of airtime to promote nonsense, such as ‘growth in tourism over the next decade’. Indeed, our PM has special repsonsibility for lying to the nation about the future of tourism (and lying to the nation about practically everything else).
The maniacs in charge will blithely take us into uncharted territory and in all probability annhiliate their own progeny’s prospects just so they can hang on to their perceived entitlements a little longer.
It is all rather hilarious to watch exactly how stupid people can expend so much effort to not read the source document and to try to understand the actual science in it. If they spent even a fraction of the time reading science that they expend propagating self-referencing bullshit, then those of us to actually do read and understand science wouldn’t get so frustrated with them. But it appears that your average Goreist is far more concerned with inflated gossip than actually understanding science.
It cuts both ways lprent – there is a lot of filtering required to keep up with the current science.
By the time I had got to the bottom of the first page the article I had gleaned no significant information from it, so I didn’t bother to access the second page.
The article fulfilled its purpose of providing readers with distraction, and promulgating the ideas of doubt and conspiracy where they don’t exist.
OH, so after doing a google to find an article about the misleading melting glaciers by 2035 I picked one of the first off the list after a very brief scan of it. I’m very sorry the content of the ‘almost random’ link I picked wasn’t up to your standards.
But just out of interest, do you have any comment on how this also fits with lprent saying CCD’s make shit up with no scientific backing and how crappy that is ? Did you get the connection that the melting glaciers claim is as shockingly poor from a scientific perspective as [xyz] example from the CCD’s ?
So you quote an poorly written article by a lazy journalist about a inadequete section of the non-scientific part of the last IPCC report that was dealing with possible social and economic effects of climate change.
I guess you just demonstrated yet again that there are idiot deniers around who don’t read what they quote.. In fact you are living proof of the what I was saying in the post in my first point. Perhaps I should have added another point that some people are incapable of recognizing the difference between science papers and less strenuously peer reviewed verbiage.
You really are a rather pathetic munter sometimes. Perhaps you should actually read and think about the posts rather than making such a dickhead of yourself.
I don’t understand why you are taking this so personally. Seriously I don’t. Was it because I only had to change one word in that paragraph I quoted to prove that it cuts both ways?
from the link;
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.
I haven’t claimed anything myself, I haven’t said this post of your is incorrect, I haven’t said anything except that how you describe CCD’s also seems to fit the behaviour of some “climate scientists”. Unless you either wrote the particular section in the IPCC report or have quoted it as fact in the past I fail to see how this gets you so irate ?
There is one (yes, just one) salient piece of information in the Times’ article about this IPCC mistake – “the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.”
Which doesn’t really fit the denier narrative, so they ignore it. Another feature of IPCC AR4 (that doesn’t fit the denier narrative) is that it erred on the conservative side, particularly with regard to Arctic warming.
Skeptical Science is probably the best resource when it comes to countering these witless truthers with hard facts, but for actual Climatology you can’t go past Real Climate.
Grumpy you are so full of shit, climatologists expose poor research all the time: look at the crap that Roy Spencer and John Christy put out, that has been proven wrong time and time again.
Of course, if you believe an article in The Daily Mail is proof of anything, you are either mentally challenged or delusional.
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This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
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I’ve come to the (likely unpopular) conclusion that climate change over the next 100 years is not the probable Big Problem facing global human civilisation; instead, irrecoverable fossil fuel energy depletion over the next 20 years is.
This is also a logical conclusion from AFKTT’s statements that the global economy is only a few years away from significant retrenchment due to peak oil and various energy crises.
IF that occurs, major reductions in economic activity and fossil fuel availability will become the norm. Global carbon output will fall, and fall hard, without external intervention (carbon taxes, ETS’s etc), Kyoto Protocol or no.
I’ve come to the (likely unpopular) conclusion that climate change over the next 100 years is not the probable Big Problem facing global human civilisation
I agree. I think there are much more immediate problems. I was reminded of this by an article by Prince Charles (of all people). While everyone is arguing about how many metres (or fractions thereof) the sea level may or may not be by the time most of us are dead, in the meantime:
– critical forests are being irretreivably lost
– water systems are being destroyed
– fish stocks continue to plummet
– soil and arable land is being lost at increasing rates
– food production is becoming more costly
– etc etc etc
I suspect these issues in combination will be more immediate than “climate change” as popularly conceived.
Yes but you miss a crucial point here – as every enviromentalist finds out the second that they start to campaign on any of these issues is that they are all interlinked and luckily the solutions to one problem also handily are often helpful or the solution to the other problems listed. Including climate change.
CV – you are forgetting that we still have a LOT of coal and now frozen undersea methane deposits to extract. All that carbon will be used if we don’t stop use of fossil fuels and that will seal humanities fate.
And QT – YOU might be dead but I won’t and neither will my children or grandchildren and their children… I actually want to hand them a livable planet and a good life. Thanks. 🙂
Hi Shane,
I agree there are huge amounts of coal left which might be extracted eg in US, China, Russia etc.
However I believe that increases in coal extraction rates will not even come close to matching near term (<10 year) declines in crude oil production.
IMO crude oil production per day will now never ever exceed 85mbpd, taken as a quarterly average.
You know that supply is running at over 86kbpd and has been since the beginning of 2010…
Supply is running at 86,000 barrels per day?
That number is way too low IMO. For ex. US daily consumption of oil is around the 20M barrel per day mark.
By supply I mean production, in case I confused you. Check the OPEC monthly Reports, iea or eia reports. Not sure how you can say it’s too low when it is higher than your maximum possible output. Are we comparing the same thing?
QSF: Sea level is the least important or severe of the issues from climate change. Probably why you picked it as your only effect.
In your list I can’t see any that will not be made far worse with climate change. Quite simply we are totally reliant on a stable climate and have non real idea of the risks of being in an changing climate.
For instance, if you’d care to engage your brain for a second, just think of the effects on food production costs if the frequency of tropical storms impacting doubled in the next two decades. Based on what we know about climate, this is quite a feasible effect. But we don’t have enough information to build it into the IPCC models because we will only find out after it has happened.
Well CV I’d agree peak oil will bite us in the butt soon, but climate change will crush us inevitably.
The difference between the two issues is that climate change has very large delays and momentum built into the system. Once we go past climate tipping points there is nothing anyone can do to respond …except sit back and not enjoy the ride.
Not really. You are dealing with a question of relative risk.
With fossil fuels the effects of rising costs are relatively well known. The costs will rise as they get progressively harder to extract until a point is reached that an alternative becomes viable. This will almost certainly cause recessions to depressions as new economic equilibrium are reached.
We already know what most of the alternative technologies are and even have some ideas on the price points of using them on a large scale. We have already seen most of the effects of changing energy costs in the economies. The main real effect at the fundamentals level is that it will drive up the cost of food production.
The biggest unknown risks involved are that someone starts a widespread war.
The problem with climate change is that the effects are unknown. The IPCC projections are simply the best minimum guesses based on what we already know. We have already pumped enough greenhouse gases into the the atmosphere to radically change the climate.
We simply haven’t had another planet to try out the effects of widespread climate modification on so when the IPCC does a report they base it on what is known will happen – not what could happen. Noone knows where the effects of what is already in the atmosphere and oceans will lead. While it is feasible for scientific morons (like DPF) to purportedly treat IPCC projections like gospel, no one with any understanding of the unknown risks in the IPCC would do anything except treat them as the most optimistic possible projections.
The risks are that we have no idea when the effects will manifest, no idea how great the effects will be, and no real idea of the impacts on our civilization. We have never seen it before as a civilization at anything like the same scale. The most extreme climate shifts we have in our history as a agricultural species were a fraction of what we know we’re going to get in climate effects and were quite localized.
The difference in risk is that we have no real idea of what climate change will do to our food production even in the next couple of decades, whereas we do with increasing costs of energy.
This is at a time when we have the largest population our species has ever had. The only thing we are sure about is that we will have an increased frequency of extreme weather events – exactly the type of thing that farmers fear the most.
We’re going to get those effects sometime this century. The evidence is that we are getting them now at levels of statistical significance. We don’t know if these types of weather events are just the start or if they are as bad as they’re going to get.
Now we could get lucky and the main effects hold off for a century until we are over peak population. But I think the current evidence is that we’ll see strong climate effects that affect food production in the next couple of decades.
lprent
‘With fossil fuels the effects of rising costs are relatively well known. The costs will rise as they get progressively harder to extract until a point is reached that an alternative becomes viable. ‘
That is simply not true.
There are no ‘alternatives’ to fossil fuels. Nothing available on this planet matches the energy density, quantity and EROEI of oil and coal. No combination of so-called alternatives can support even a tiny fraction of present human arrangements. I susgget you rewatch Albert Bartlett’s ‘Arithmentic Population and Energy’ and Chris Martenson’s ‘Crash Course’. And read TEW.
It took nature hundreds of millions of years to sequester all that carbon safely underground and generate the stable climate conditions that made civilisation possible, but humans have managed to transfer a large portion of that carbon back into the atmosphere (and the oceans) in just 200 years.
I didn’t say that they had to be as efficient or as flexible to replace. What they need to be is as functional at some level of cost.
For instance and just looking in our recent past at fundamentals. In the agricultural area in the 19th century and early 20th there were steam powered tractors. In transport there were steam powered buses and lorries as well as steam and electric trains and electric trams. Steam powered and wind powered ships (imagine the latter with some serious computer controlled sail area pushing large container craft).
Sure it’d be hard to do it without touching fossil fuels, but those are just old tech that we already know has already worked with replaceable resources like hydro and biomatter. Then of course there are all of the new tech that has been tried but never been in full blown use because it is too expensive relative to a extracted fossil fuel alternative.
My point was that all of these are known technologies that could be used at a more expensive cost point and we have some idea of the risk levels. However the effects of extensive climate change on our society and civilization is largely unknown especially in the area of food production. There are going to be unexpected gotchas in how that plays out. At present it looks like the first unpleasant surprise is how fast the frequency of extreme weather events is rising.
Coal is going to make a comeback globally, we can bet on it.
lprent
I cannot follow what you are trying to say.
We know we cannot go back to steam engines because we cannot burn coal and there isn’t enough wood (one of the reasons coal was adopted).
We could have wooden sailing ships, but building more than just a few of those would be a struggle now that so much of the hardwood has gone and has been replaced by pine which is totally unsuitable for ship construction.
‘wind powered ships (imagine the latter with some serious computer controlled sail area pushing large container craft).’
Why would we want to do that? Global trade arrangements will disintegrate fairly soon. We will soon be primarily concerned with day to day survival at the local level (as has been the case for 99% of humanity for 99.99% of human history).
‘replaceable resources like hydro and biomatter’
We may be able to keep hydro running for a while after the global industrial system collapses, but there is no evidence we can maintain such systems in the long term and a lot of evidence we can’t, e.g.
http://dieoff.org/page125.htm
When you mention biomatter, that could mean horses eating hay. If you are suggesting making alcohol from corn or beet etc. that will almost certainly not work. Dr David Fridley spoke about ‘The Myth of Biofuels’, several years ago
http://www.postcarbon.org/video/46329-the-myth-of-biofuels
following on from the work of Pimmintel etc., who also figured out that biofuels are hopeless as fuels to run complex societies
http://environment.about.com/od/ethanolfaq/f/ethanol_problem.htm
and
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/pf_bio.htm
Why would we go to wood for ships when we can still produce steel?
Hydro-power was first built in the 19th century so chances are we’ll be able to keep it going. Would it be the same as what was built in the 1970s? Probably not as we’ll most likely go to in stream systems rather than damns.
‘This is at a time when we have the largest population our species has ever had. The only thing we are sure about is that we will have an increased frequency of extreme weather events – exactly the type of thing that farmers fear the most.’
Awaiting the update of this site.
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
It should be a available soon.
Continuation of the trend of the past 11 months will be annihilation of a huge portion of US agricultural production.
Are you fighting those things you list queenstfarmer?
If not, why not?
I would say I do more, but probably not much more, than the average punter.
No wonder people say the word blog so derogatorily. Perhaps it should be a function of scientific papers and reports to have an even more succinct conclusion for all those bloggers that have the attention span of an ant. CCD = Cerebral Cognitive Disease.
A press release from State of the Oceans and the summary of a workshop held in April make for dire reading.
Alex Rogers
The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the
implications became far worse than we had individually realized. This is a very
serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at
consequences for humankind that will!impact in our lifetime, and worse, our
children’s and generations beyond that.”
p
Nothing wrong with the oceans except the bottom trawling
-and why do we allow foreign countries to take out copious amounts of fish from our waters?
Yep. An unknown effect. No one has any real idea what changing the pH of the oceans does to either the ocean productivity or to the weather patterns.
QSF at it again, living up to his arrogant title. Yesterday Krugman was cross, today it’s eco-warrior Charles who gets backhanded: ‘an article by Prince Charles (of all people).’
Why doesn’t he go home to KB and stay there?
Calm down – I wasn’t dissing HRH Prince Charles.
“Why doesn’t he go home to KB and stay there?”
Indeed, this site needs him to leave so that it can discuses within itself and maintain its group think policy.
Well thought out and constructively critical posts aren’t welcome unless they reinforce the group’s view.
Science? What is fair and balanced about science?
That depends what you mean – science isn’t so much fair and balanced as competitive and cut-throat. Nature is the only authority – and it is neither fair nor subject to notions of ‘balance’.
Good science.
http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2011/long-term-trend-in-global-co2-emissions-2011-report
As with climate change, the Internet is awash with misinformation concerning oil. The peak in extraction of conventional oil occurred as two sub-peaks in 2005 and 2006. Extraction of conventional oil is in severe decline in the vast majority of regions of the world.
However, the total liquids has been bouncing along the ‘bumpy platuea’ since 2006. Total liquids includes unconventional oil -deep water, condensates derived from extraction of natural gas, oil extracted from tar sands etc., even from coal, and some people have the cheek to include ethanol derived from the fermentation of corn as ‘oil’.
Some say the world has been using more oil than has been extracting over the past year or so, the difference being made up by draw-down of stocks. The ongoing financial mess and unemployment in much of the developed wolrd is depressing demand and is depressing oil prices.
What is irrefutable is that the Energy Return(ed) On Energy Invested continues to fall. Such is the desperation to prop up present industrial arangements that oil companies are signing up to explore and develop potential oil-bearing regions in the Arctic: they are looking forward to the meltdown of the Arctic, simply as a mechanism to aid resource extraction! Sea level rise and climate chaos do not factor into energy companies’ accounts.
The other important factor to watch is the Export-Land Model: many oil exporting regions have rising domestic demand which means that export supply is being eaten into by depletion and by domestic consumption.
With respect to climate change denial, it is worth repeating that oil, cement and automotive companies have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into funding misinformation and confusion. And it is still happening.
Although some comments have noted the inevitability of a reduction in CO2 emissions from burning oil as we slide down the peak oil curve, they have failed to note that Global Dimming -the reduction in light reaching the ground due to industrial ‘smog’ in the atmosphere- will probably decline dramatically as we fall off the oil depletion curve. Less Global Dimming = more warming and more triggering of positive feedbacks.
Coming generations are being totally screwed by the small sector of humanity that is currently misleading and misgoverning us.
As far as I am concerned there are only two issues worth discussing:
1. How do we prevent mass starvation when the industrial food system collapses (due to peak oil climate instability, soil loss, lack of fertilisers, lack of fresh water etc)?
2. How do we prevent abrupt climate change ( a rapid surge in temperature in a short time) rendering the Earth largely uninhabitable in a few decades?
(The matter of acidification of the oceans is also of huge concern but, as I point out in TEW, higher ocean temperatures could well drive CO2 out of the oceans, exacerbating the temperature predicament. Others would say that putting a halt to the Sixth Great Extinction Event is more important than the fate of humantiy.)
I also point out in TEW, these issues are never discussed in mainstream, and those who raise them are ignored, lampooned, marginalised etc. This is because society was hijacked by banksters corporations long ago, of course, and they are only interested in maintianing their particular Ponzi schemes.
In the meantime, ‘idiots’ are given plenty of airtime to promote nonsense, such as ‘growth in tourism over the next decade’. Indeed, our PM has special repsonsibility for lying to the nation about the future of tourism (and lying to the nation about practically everything else).
The maniacs in charge will blithely take us into uncharted territory and in all probability annhiliate their own progeny’s prospects just so they can hang on to their perceived entitlements a little longer.
World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown
It is all rather hilarious to watch exactly how stupid people can expend so much effort to not read the source document and to try to understand the actual science in it. If they spent even a fraction of the time reading science that they expend propagating self-referencing bullshit, then those of us to actually do read and understand science wouldn’t get so frustrated with them. But it appears that your average Goreist is far more concerned with inflated gossip than actually understanding science.
It cuts both ways lprent – there is a lot of filtering required to keep up with the current science.
Burt, that article you linked to is the laziest piece of sub-cretinous tosh I’ve read in ages.
Still it should be right up your alley.
Well said RedLogix.
By the time I had got to the bottom of the first page the article I had gleaned no significant information from it, so I didn’t bother to access the second page.
The article fulfilled its purpose of providing readers with distraction, and promulgating the ideas of doubt and conspiracy where they don’t exist.
OH, so after doing a google to find an article about the misleading melting glaciers by 2035 I picked one of the first off the list after a very brief scan of it. I’m very sorry the content of the ‘almost random’ link I picked wasn’t up to your standards.
But just out of interest, do you have any comment on how this also fits with lprent saying CCD’s make shit up with no scientific backing and how crappy that is ? Did you get the connection that the melting glaciers claim is as shockingly poor from a scientific perspective as [xyz] example from the CCD’s ?
So you quote an poorly written article by a lazy journalist about a inadequete section of the non-scientific part of the last IPCC report that was dealing with possible social and economic effects of climate change.
I guess you just demonstrated yet again that there are idiot deniers around who don’t read what they quote.. In fact you are living proof of the what I was saying in the post in my first point. Perhaps I should have added another point that some people are incapable of recognizing the difference between science papers and less strenuously peer reviewed verbiage.
You really are a rather pathetic munter sometimes. Perhaps you should actually read and think about the posts rather than making such a dickhead of yourself.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jonathan_Leake
lprent
I don’t understand why you are taking this so personally. Seriously I don’t. Was it because I only had to change one word in that paragraph I quoted to prove that it cuts both ways?
from the link;
I haven’t claimed anything myself, I haven’t said this post of your is incorrect, I haven’t said anything except that how you describe CCD’s also seems to fit the behaviour of some “climate scientists”. Unless you either wrote the particular section in the IPCC report or have quoted it as fact in the past I fail to see how this gets you so irate ?
There is one (yes, just one) salient piece of information in the Times’ article about this IPCC mistake – “the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.”
Which doesn’t really fit the denier narrative, so they ignore it. Another feature of IPCC AR4 (that doesn’t fit the denier narrative) is that it erred on the conservative side, particularly with regard to Arctic warming.
Skeptical Science is probably the best resource when it comes to countering these witless truthers with hard facts, but for actual Climatology you can’t go past Real Climate.
Yes, to be fair, there are now a greater number of climate scientists will to expose poor research. As the link below proves.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039807/New-Times-Atlas-pulped-climate-change-exaggeration-row.html
Grumpy you are so full of shit, climatologists expose poor research all the time: look at the crap that Roy Spencer and John Christy put out, that has been proven wrong time and time again.
Of course, if you believe an article in The Daily Mail is proof of anything, you are either mentally challenged or delusional.