climate change

Categories under climate change

Spot the difference! Stating the nation

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, January 23rd, 2014 - 97 comments

[Updated] Speeches: Key (today ZB Transcript). PM’s speech – untruths, misdirections & corporatisation of education – comment added. Cunliffe on Monday, on greater opportunities for all Kiwis. Metiria Turei’s speech, Sunday – will talk education, environment. Peters responds to Key. Greens response – education. Cunliffe’s Stand-up – audio.

Deep sea oil drilling

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, January 23rd, 2014 - 91 comments

Deep sea oil drilling is in the news.  Labour’s position is to require increased environmental standards and drillers would have to display an effective ability to clean up any disasters.  The Greens would prefer to leave the oil in the ground.  If there is a change of Government this year resolving this issue will pose a fascinating test of the parties.

A big gay rainbow the true cause of the UK’s unusual weather

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, January 21st, 2014 - 20 comments

It is quite an achievement for a sitting MP to be considered to be too nutty for the UKIP.  But David Silvester has achieved this dubious distinction by claiming that adverse weather events in the United Kingdom are the result of legalising same sex marriage …

There is science, and then there are dickheads

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 17th, 2014 - 153 comments

Over the last three centuries science has established a pretty robust technique for overturning consensus and examining the weirder areas of science. You have to publish. Waving an untestable vague idea of cause and effect around based on wordplay is something that is better left to politicians, con artists, and religionists. Waving his dick around like Rodney Hide did on Sunday merely proves that he doesn’t think with his brain.

The politics of food: Oxfam report

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, January 16th, 2014 - 10 comments

Some MSM reports crow about positive economic indicators, & decreases in the time people spend on benefits. Such statistics fail to show inequalities, & struggles of people on low incomes.  An Oxfam comparative international report on food security is not good news for NZ, or the world.

Oil Free Otago’s day of action

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, January 12th, 2014 - 38 comments

Oil Free Otago is holding a weekend of action and discussion on an oil free future.

Its not easy being Green

Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, January 11th, 2014 - 175 comments

There is an important debate for both Labour and the Greens to have about the level of cooperation they should display this year.  Some commentators have suggested that the Greens will be sidelined and that the battle will be between Labour and National but this is MMP and every vote counts.  The goal for progressives has to be to increase the overall left vote.

Even David Cameron believes in climate change

Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, January 9th, 2014 - 255 comments

Some extreme weather events around the world are being cited as proof by the ill informed that global warming has ceased.  Rodney Hide, Donald Trump and the commentators at Fox News rank amongst the most sceptical.  But when even Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron concedes that these weather events may be linked to climate change then the failure to make fundamental change becomes even more puzzling.

New Zealand is doing nothing about climate change

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, January 5th, 2014 - 178 comments

The latest report on New Zealand’s performance under the Kyoto Protocol is out and the news is disturbing.  Net emissions compared to  our 1990 CO2 equivalent emissions are predicted to treble by 2030 at a time where they should be trending to below the 1990 level.  And Government policies are shown to be making little difference.  Meanwhile a report by Prof Euan Mason advocates that Agriculture should be in the scheme and that with a proper price for ETS credits significant reforestation with attendant benefits could occur.  And meanwhile RWNJs continue to show their belligerent lack of understanding of the science of climate change …

Polity: Who believes in climate change?

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 pm, December 29th, 2013 - 84 comments

Cool-yet-depressing finding on why some people change their mind on climate change from one day to the next.

It can be summarised by saying Republicans in the US are scientific morons, and many Americans decide based on the previous days weathers.

The lighter side of left

Written By: - Date published: 6:14 pm, December 21st, 2013 - 41 comments

How will the media report the apocalypse? And other fun videos, images & links.

NRT: Climate change: More windfall profits

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, December 9th, 2013 - 19 comments

The Emissions Trading Scheme was never a particularly good way of curbing greenhouse emissions and the way that National gutted it made it distinctly worse. Now we are in a position where National has found a way to use it to providing even more polluter welfare.

Breaking News: Aratere to be used in the event of a major oil spill

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 3rd, 2013 - 38 comments

As Greenpeace make a bid in the High Court to challenge the EPA’s decision to grant Anadarko permission to deep sea drill, we can reveal the content of secret documents detailing the contingency plan in the event of a major oil spill. The documents outline how the stricken inter island ferry Aratere will be deployed in the cleanup effort, should a catastrophic event occur.

1979: the year that the climate changed for me

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, November 27th, 2013 - 34 comments

On the site we now have a a simple little graphic that shows how much heat has accumulated on our planet. It is expressed as multiples of of the heat energy of Hiroshima sized A-bombs. I’ve picked 1979 as being the start year because that was the year that I became aware of the effects of changing climate. I was a 19 year old student in my second year of a BSc in Earth Sciences, and the topic under discussion was the WMO’s recent World Climate Conference.

NRT: Climate change: The enemy

Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, November 21st, 2013 - 31 comments

The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.

Oil rigs – coming to a beach near you?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, November 19th, 2013 - 98 comments

The Government is in the process of handing out oil exploration permits which would if unchanged allow drilling 6 nautical miles out from the west coast beaches of Auckland.  And Auckland Council had the chance to submit on the proposal and did so, in a very gentle way, but forgot to ask the locals including the local board.  There has to be a better way.

Nats’ demolition derby

Written By: - Date published: 5:20 pm, November 18th, 2013 - 107 comments

John Key’s government is going full tilt at dismantling everything of value in NZ, and selling as much as possible to the overseas investors.  It’s the government of Drill It, Mine it, Sell it.  Find out about the asset sales referendum & how to vote.

Groser says govt ministers in denial of reality

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, November 14th, 2013 - 145 comments

3news has shaken out hidden science denialists in National. This follows the disgraceful booing of Russel Norman by National MPs who did not want to hear him ‘inappropriately’ quote a Filipino official attributing the typhoon to climate change at a time apparently meant for empty platitudes. Meanwhile, the Filipino official that Norman was quoting has written to thank him.

NAct MPs: heckling from “their armchairs”

Written By: - Date published: 3:01 pm, November 12th, 2013 - 128 comments

Today in speaking to John Key’s motion on the Typhoon in the Philippines, Russel Norman read out a statement that was spoken by Philippines climate negotiator Naderev “Yeb” Saño, who called for urgent action on climate change.  Sounds of heckling could he heard from the comfort of the government benches. [update: Yeb Saño to Russel Norman]

Quote of the day: “Atlas shrugs off climate change”

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 37 comments

Kennedy Graham’s post on NZ’s appalling record on climate change:  ‘Atlas shrugs off climate change – a New Zealand policy failure of monumental proportions‘, includes a great quote about Key shrugging in the face of his (and “neoliberalism”) failures.  So apt.

“Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?”

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, October 22nd, 2013 - 68 comments

Lord Nicolas Stern, who wrote a ground-breaking report on the economic costs of climate change against the costs of stopping it (conclusion: stopping it is cheap compared to the cost of not), has changed his mind. Climate change is getting worse, faster, and heading to worse results than he thought. It’s no longer a matter of avoiding disaster, but how bad it gets.

Well done Greens!

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, October 13th, 2013 - 115 comments

Yesterday was a very good day for the Greens (and the left).  Congratulations!  It’s hard to predict outcomes for next year’s parliamentary elections based on local elections, especially when the voter turnout is so low.  But the left does get a boost from the results.  Local councils need to be improved so that are more democratic. [Update: Clow (Labour) for Whau- preliminary result. Waitakere Ranges Board]

Streamed AR5 science workshop

Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, October 10th, 2013 - 4 comments

Thomas Stocker of the IPCC’s science group is in New Zealand for a few days. Local science groups have taken the opportunity to put together a stakeholder workshop to allow Stocker and NZ lead authors to present the key findings of the recently published AR5 WG1 report. The public workshop is being held tomorrow, Friday 11th, from 9am to 1pm in Wellington and will be web-cast live.

APEC, TPP, Crosby-Textor, Philip Morris & John Key

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, October 8th, 2013 - 76 comments

John Key’s role as Obama surrogate in chairing TPP discussions at APEC just reinforce how much Key is deeply involved in crony capitalist, Big Corporate serving networks of influence: ones that link him with anti-democratic Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and climate change denial propaganda.

We’re really stuffing up, aren’t we?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, September 29th, 2013 - 54 comments

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report makes, well, pretty damn depressing reading. Over a century after the basic mechanism of global warming by greenhouse gases was understood, and quarter of a century since the world’s nations signed the framework convention on climate change, emissions are still rising and the outlook is getting worse.

IPCC AR5: Thank the oceans

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 28th, 2013 - 101 comments

The levels of agreement in IPCC AR5 preliminary report on oceans are no longer ambiguous. Enough data has (finally) been collected.

Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.

Kennedy Graham: Key’s UN speech “B-“

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 pm, September 27th, 2013 - 39 comments

Good on Kennedy Graham for posting a good critique of Key’s UN speech, while the MSM largely report the speech in uncritical and glowing terms., Graham focuses on Errors of Omission. [Update: Key’s Omission of Kampala non-aggression Agreement, implicitly supports Obama’s UN speech for US military aggression.]

Beyond the MSM? You Bet!

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, September 20th, 2013 - 221 comments

David Cunliffe spoke to the Left base in the Daily Blog Live interview last night: economy, tax, employment, GCSB, TPPA & more.  He raises hopes for a new, post GFC social democratic vision. But he spoke to those with economic & policy knowledge. His nods towards better social security, away from bennie bashing, need fleshing out.

UBI. (Universal Basic Income).

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, September 5th, 2013 - 232 comments

The concept of UBI has a long history in New Zealand.

Of course, we already have a UBI for those over 65.  Which has been extremely successful at eliminating poverty amongst the elderly, at a very moderate cost by international standards.

Why I electorate vote Cunliffe: op ed

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, August 23rd, 2013 - 138 comments

I wasn’t going to express my opinion on the upcoming Labour leadership selection process. However, the usual right leaning MSM hacks seem to have been following the current Labour caucus leadership in naming Robertson as the frontrunner. This is my op ed testimony for my frontrunner, the MP for my electorate: Cunliffe.

A king is born: Long Live Inequality!

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, July 25th, 2013 - 87 comments

UK children born on the same day as the new prince will get a silver penny: but their lives will be vastly different.  Left foot Forward spells out the inequalities between these new born.  John Key gushes over the new prince, while his government slashes, burns and fuels inequalities.

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