Written By: - Date published: 5:14 pm, December 9th, 2008 - 55 comments
Categories: climate change, national/act government -
Tags: ets, Rodney Hide
Rodney Hide on National and ACT’s select committee into the ETS:
“I am especially pleased to see that the issue of the scientific and trade implications will be considered alongside the impacts on the economy.
“There is definitely not a monolithic view on the fact of human induced climate change and I welcome this government’s willingness to hear from scientists and others who are sceptics. I have to say I am one and it is appalling that the previous government accepted human induced climate change as a new religion with former US vice- president Al Gore as its prophet.”
Hear that? It’s the sound of our international credibility going down the gurgler.
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There is a scientific consensus about the link of CO2 and climate change. The widely reported “differences” appear ideological not scientific. I wish the denialists would simply read science periodicals and peer reviewed journals rather than right wing blogs and the rantings of tin hat wearing paranoids. What bugs me is that the science is consistently hijacked in the media and in discussions such as this but ideologically-driven argument rather than evidence and reason. It’s as annoying as the Evolution denialists and the Holocaust denialists and, like them, it uses the same kinds of tactics: like picking on some minor point of issue of inconsistency and use that little acorn of argument to grow a tremendous oak of stupidity. Look, fuck all this bullshit. Something needs to be done about climate change. And it needs to be done now. We look stupid and ignorant arguing the fundamental science. That debate is over. Has been for about five years. Let’s just get on and fix the damned problem. Even if ideology has got the better of you and you continue to deny the science what’s the harm of shifting to a more productive and sustainable economy? If you deny climate change, the worse that should happen by addressing climate change as if it were real is that we end up less dependent on extortionate oil, have cleaner air and water and a much better deal for the environment. That’s it. That’s the worse case scenario. But if you’re wrong and climate change is real and we don’t do something about the worst case scenario is fucking terrible. I just don’t understand why denialists just don’t go with the flow. Feel free to say, “I don’t believe the science and evidence” but just don’t impede the rest of us from getting on a doing something about climate change.
lprent
If human activity has had a serious effect close to irreversible in decades then the effects are not at peak now. The lag between inputs and predicted outcomes requires urgent action, yet we seek to use it to save a few thousand residents of an low lying island where every cm makes a difference. Bloody noble idea but on a planet where solid rock floats like a super slow motion wobbly jelly with hollows filled with condensed water – shit happens and at least these people have a heads up warning of more than a few minutes, days or years. People are more temporary than land on this planet, but nothing lasts forever.
Throughout time sea levels have been changing, changes in land mass form will have more significant effects on sea level than melting ice. Floating ice that melts makes no difference to sea levels.
I feel for any humans displaced by global climate changes but decimating our fragile economy to show the world why changes should be made seems like folly to me.
Westminister is exactly correct. The science debate on this has been over for a while. The problem for a while is not that there are going to be effects, it is looking at the risks of various possible effects. Frankly Act’s attitudes just look archaic to anyone that knows the science. To me they look like dickheads because it is clear that they don’t understand the theory, and always nitpick on things that aren’t particularly related (ie they don’t understand the theory or the evidence).
The political debate is about how to ameliorate these effects. That has barely started and certainly hasn’t had any real affect on the growth of emissions to date.
I’d point out that likely direct effects for NZ are low impact. Inland continental areas and low lying areas are the landmasses that hit the worst in possible scenarios. Since that is where a large proportion of our current and future markets lie… It is important to us as well.
We’re economically connected to the overseas markets that are getting very worried about effects in their region. Northern Europe, Northern America in particular are likely to have real problems, so they’re slowly taking action. Those actions will include all of their trading partners because you can’t ameliorate the problem locally.
That is where Lew and others arguments come into play. There will be direct pressure from those countries.
As China, India, etc get further into their growth, you’ll find that they get pretty concerned as well. They’ll see significant effects probably even sooner, and be less able to cope.
burt: I think that you’ve been already answered. Not doing something about it is likely to even worse things to our ‘fragile economy”.
We are configured to be massively linked into the world economy and not be a hermit kingdom like North Korea. We will see economic effects early coming in from our trading partners. We trade in luxuries which are easy targets for domestic politicians in those countries.
lprent
So it’s boiled down to how we market NZ?
The ETS is to stave off the predicted slump in tourism due to ETS type schemes on the other side of the world. OK.
“Throughout time sea levels have been changing, changes in land mass form will have more significant effects on sea level than melting ice. Floating ice that melts makes no difference to sea levels.”
Thats straight from a blog or some crackpot journalist burt. You’d be hard pressed to find that in a peer-reviewed paper in a good journal. There is some serious misinformation out there.
CG: I missed that.
burt: Apart from the simple temperature effects, of course state changes have an effect. Ice is less dense than water (which of course is why it floats). So good, it will then reduce the sealevel right (imagining a classic science illiterate argument). But that is incorrect because of displacement – nett effect probably nothing for sea ice. Apart from the volume change in warm water, the salinity changes and their effects on currents, the temparure changes and their effects on currents, the biosphere changes and their effect on everything.
But most importantly… Except that a high proportion of the worlds ice is tied up on land in Greenland, Siberia, Antartica, Alaska, etc etc. If that melts then there are major changes in sealevels – it currently has no effect on sealevels because it is on land.
No burt, in the short-term for NZ, it is if we are allowed to market our goods to markets that do have a lot to worry about. If they look at us and say that we’re putting their lives and their children at risk, they’ll buy goods elsewhere.
It won’t be the consumers doing it either (although I’d expect that will be significant). It will be trade barriers because our production and delivery costs in emissions will be too high. They will simply tax us at the border for the costs that we should have already built in. No-one likes a freeloader, especially those paying the costs for local production and services.
Face it, it is get with our markets or get out within a few short decades…
Yes burt, tectonic movements such as earthquakes may have a greater effect (in the short term, at least) and less warning than sea level change but there is an important difference – we didn’t cause the earthquake, we didn’t forecast the earthquake, and we couldn’t stop the earthquake happening, or at least reduce its affects.
Just because someone might be hit by an meteorite, that doesn’t mean we should drop rocks off bridges
GC – No doubt that bird flu was overblown by the media, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that such a possibility, an animal flu virus mutating and becoming capable of human to human infection, is a serious risk. Does 1918 ring a bell? From memory I think that was a pig flu virus that mutated. Tens of millions of people died. A new influenza virus such as that is always a potentiality, though nothing to fret over and drum up media driven fear over. That particular bird flu mutating is still a possibility, so the risk has by no means past.
Whenever I hear someone complaining about how bird flu never became an epidemic, and what a waste of time preparing for it was, I can’t help but imagine what they’d say if the Govt had played the odds and done nothing, and then human-to-human transmission started happening… along the lines of “you knew about this a year ago and you haven’t prepared, curse you Helen Clark, and your irresponsible government, why couldn’t you be more like some kind of benevalent protector, like some kind of gigantic…um…..nanny?”
Anyway, although the stockpiled Tamiflu may never be used, the rest of the preparations were hardly a waste of time. Our civil defence procedures got a good look at, and if an epidemic does arrive, and without the warning of H5N1, then this sort of practice could make a huge difference.
gingercrush, Dan:
Thanks for the responses. I can see where there’s a possibility that our being seen to be doing something about climate change may ameliorate the concerns of some Norhern hemisphere consumers about the distances travelled by our produce and the carbon that produces.
However the “buy local” movement has a lot of other drivers including a desire to have confidence in the levels of pesticides etc (including none at all when buying organic). They naturally believe that local producers are more responsive and accountable to such concerns.
If that’s going to be advanced as an argument in favour of an ETS (and I accept that, prima facie, it’s a reasonable argument) then it would seem to make sense for us to be doing some market research to ascertain just what influence these various factors have upon consumers in our major markets.
lprent suggests:
A glass half full man, I see
Personally, I doubt a country that can shrug off international outrage at everything from executing its citizens as a spectator sport to censoring the internet will give a damn. And as for India, I suspect they’ll continue to have more pressing problems similar to Mumbai for some time to come. Plus there’s the factor that for individuals to alleviate their burden on the planet has costs – in everything from paying for recycling in your rates to buying a Prius – that the average Indian consumer is unlikely to be able to meet.
Rex: You’re confusing two separate human traits. Political repression, and physical safety. They get processed quite differently by people and their governments.
I was referring to the number of their populations that live in river deltas, river mouths, or on the coast lines in continental areas, and their safety. If the affluence levels levels in those countries rises as fast as I expect, then I’d also expect that there will be the commiserate rise in the interest of the safety of their populations. The populations will demand it because what use is a government that cannot ensure the physical safety of their general population.
Continental river and coastal cities get hit by multiple factors from increased runoff going down the large rivers, salination of water tables, tidal effects from sea level rises, increased storm activity, etc.
If a country like the US, with their vast spare capacity, has problems with the after-effects of a single storm in a city like New Orleans. Then imagine what happens to a city like coastal city on a river mouth like Shanghai, or a city like Delhi, located on a vulnerable flood plain when they have a event.
I suspect that it will only take a relatively few of those weather related incidents that can partially be related to climate change in a short time period with high death and displacement rates to cause governments in those areas to look at climate change in a whole new light. While they’re cleaning up their own act, they will also target others.
Rex: Dan, GC and Lynn have largely made my arguments for me, but to address your specific questions:
Do you really think NZ’s clean green marketing image is dependent upon whether or not it has an ETS?
I’d say it’s a necessary but not sufficient condition to retain brand credibility, yes.
Is the consumer in Harrods mulling over whether to buy the NZ leg of lamb or the French one really going to stop and think “hang on, who has an ETS?’. Or if not at that level, are you saying that governments will start to use lack of an ETS as an excuse for protectionist measures? No more cheap clothes and tat on a principle?
Changes in consumer behaviour take place at the margins, and the idea of the brand is not to entice people to choose NZ products over no products; it’s intended to entice them to choose NZ products over similar competing products from other suppliers. So cheap clothes and tat aren’t really at issue for us – but French (or more likely, Welsh and Irish) lamb is; French, Spanish and italian wine is, and most critically Scandinavian, Australian and Canadian tourism certainly is.
However the “buy local’ movement has a lot of other drivers
Quite true, and this is why gaining competitive advantage on variables where we can assert a point of difference (carbon neutrality, GE free, etc.) is all the more critical.
it would seem to make sense for us to be doing some market research to ascertain just what influence these various factors have upon consumers in our major markets.
To an extent this is subject to Heisenberg uncertainty, since the more market research is conducted into hot-button issues such as the environment the more it tends to reinforce the impression that it’s important and relevant. I expect some such research has been conducted as part of the 100% Pure brand strategy, and I agree that it’s important to know what you’re doing. However a perceived lack of research is no justification to halt, undermine or otherwise endanger an existing campaign which enjoys widespread support in NZ industry and is well-regarded in our markets.
L
Re; Debate on sea levels in pacific islands
Outside of normal tidal movements, sea levels don’t “rise” in one part of the same ocean, and remain level in another. To do so, water would have to disobey some fairly fundamental laws of gravity.
NZ doesn’t have rising sea levels, as far as I’m aware. Yet, miraculously, the pacific islands do… something doesn’t add up. I suspect it has more to do with some dodgy mining practices in the islands, than GW.
Phil: Just a quick oceanographers point – sea level around the world is not constant, it follows a level called the geoid, which is not regular, and then is further distorted by gravitational effects, currents, thermal expansion – which could, as far as I’m aware, mean that sea level rise affects one area more than another.
Secondly, I don’t know about NZ, but sea level has quite definitely been rising in most of the world – the difference in the Pacific islands is that the rise there is not constant. I cannot remember why, but while the average sea level in NZ, for example, rises smoothly and fairly constantly, in the islands some years are very high, some are low. Thus, if the small amount of rise that has occurred so far is paired with a high sea level year, it is quite enough to rise above low lying areas.
I believe that what is said about the swamping of pacific islands is that while it used to happen, it is now more frequent, and there is only so much an island can take before it is uninhabitable, because the freshwater source is contaminated, and plants stop growing.
Dan: Yeah my partner is off doing a documentary on an island in PNG that is having the problem. They’re not exactly sure of what is causing the change. She is away for another 2.5 weeks *sigh*. The main effect is the salination of the fresh water bubble in the atoll.
From my understanding, the likely reason for the variability in the pacific islands is the moving of ocean currents with the el-nino cycle. But the theories keep moving as they get more evidence.
NZ doesn’t really get it because of the dominance of the very continuous currents coming from Antarctica.
Apart from the ridiculous tamiflu programme, the govt did diddly squat. birdflu was mainly a MSM rark up.
The Stockpiled tamiflu will never be used. Period. Its expired.
rex,
care to elaborate on “the average Indian consumer“..?
are they up for more than you and/or less than me.. and how do you figure the average..??? serious, genuine questions, so please allow me try for some greater reality to the divers and devious commentary on this particular blog.
to mind from reading down, congrats to lprent for the “insulation” problem – so very apt; to westminster for the acorn destined to stupidity. Of course, and in deference to those in clear need of it, stupidity (like lets say like yesteryear’s Easter Islanders) would be one helluvah way to endure the hell-on-earth human future that do nothings would warrant. what’s a shorter life to the insane?
Janet, thank you for the bear thought — tho I suspect the particular offender you refered to is more likely to go meet the bears (in cooler places) than the clawed furries c’mon down for hots! Anyway they prefer raw meat. May even get to be rawhide. About the only place left on this planet of ours where he’d be deemed cool!
Unmentioned so far has been rising ocean carbon dioxide levels.. a particular regional pacific problem.. and one I daresay kiwis could align themselves well with aussies on. more perhaps concern to likely future fish stock and food chain/s.. and doing something to help ourselves etc..
And then there is another way of proving things—reduced demand! Just in from the EIA(US) I see Reuters Tom Doggett get his aussie audience with:—
Global oil demand will contract for the first time since the early 1980s as world economic growth slows to a near standstill, the US government says.
The forecast for 2008 and 2009 is bad news for energy companies and oil producing nations that depend on robust prices, but could benefit cash-strapped consumers by sending gasoline and heating costs lower, according to a US Energy Information Administration report.
World oil demand is projected to fall by 50,000 barrels per day in 2008 and 450,000 barrels per day next year, the EIA said, led by a 1.2 million bpd contraction in top consumer the United States this year a 200,000 bpd drop in 2009.
The immediate global issue is to arrest emissions growth. How the UN and US are aiming DO that I have covered a little – gimme a click – for that.