climate change

The cost of doing nothing

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:00 am, September 28th, 2012 - 34 comments

Another report confirms the findings of the 2006 Stern Report. The future economic costs of doing nothing far outweigh the current costs of taking action on climate change. But National is taking us backwards…

On good and bad welfare

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:31 am, September 12th, 2012 - 248 comments

So the government is announcing the “lifetime cost” of social welfare payments today to soften the ground for cracking down on beneficiaries.

By coincidence they’re also in the process of rushing through changes to the emissions trading scheme that will cost the taxpayer billions of dollars in corporate welfare.

Climate models fail to accurately predict Arctic ice – deniers fail to notice

Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:32 pm, August 26th, 2012 - 80 comments

Like many people I’m always bemused by the lack of logic that the climate change deniers (CCD’s) have in their extremely selective picking of things to get wound up about – especially about climate models. But when an actual  self-evident flaw shows up in the models, well they simply seem to miss it entirely. Like it is now evident that the climate models used to predict Arctic melting vastly underrate the speed at which it is happening. The consequences are going to be unpleasant for the north.

Denialists set to make monkeys of themselves

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:50 am, July 17th, 2012 - 103 comments

Could we be about to have our very own Scopes trial? In that famous Tennessee Court Case, the State prosecuted a teacher for teaching evolution. He walked free and it was a decisive moment in mainstreaming evolution and making the creationists the crackpots. Now, the climate change deniers are suing NIWA and their loss will be a dagger through the heart of denialism.

Climate change causing (another) food shock

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 12:37 pm, July 12th, 2012 - 57 comments

Climate change is causing the world’s temperatures and seas levels to rise but this isn’t a steady process. Instead we see more frequent and more extreme weather events. The record-busting heatwave in the US and floods in Russia are examples. The big problem is the effects of these weather events on our production of food and other vital goods.

A lot of hot air

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 6:59 am, July 9th, 2012 - 138 comments

Tim Groser: “Our farmers have been reducing their emissions by 1.3% per year for two decades” (that’s emissions per unit of output, btw, not absolute – although total agriculture emissions are down in recent years). Groser on why farming should be out of the ETS: “we’ll introduce biological emissions into the ETS when we think there credible abatement technologies out there.”

A rock and a hot place

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 6:30 am, July 5th, 2012 - 49 comments

Yesterday National pollster David Farrar excitedly quoted from a George Monbiot article saying peak oil isn’t happening. Two problems: 1) Farrar omitted to quote the bits of the article saying that the flipside of no peak oil would be runaway climate change. 2) the report Monbiot’s article is based on is written by an oil executive who claims we’ll stumble on endless cheap oil and all live happily ever after.

National has no intention of ever enforcing ETS

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:08 am, July 3rd, 2012 - 59 comments

As many of us expected, National has no intention of ever enforcing the ETS in the area where it makes the most difference to NZ emissions – agriculture.

Rio: another chance lost

Written By: Ben Clark - Date published: 9:22 am, June 27th, 2012 - 14 comments

How do we move forward from here?  How do we get the consensus we need?  How do we get more politicians around the world making not just speeches like David Cunliffe’s, but acting on them?  Setting the targets and the plan behind them to avoid the brutal logic of climate change.

Rio: any hope?

Written By: Ben Clark - Date published: 3:04 pm, June 20th, 2012 - 41 comments

A draft agreement has been negotiated for the Rio+20 summit that starts today, but anyone who cares about the future of our planet should be disappointed. The expert panel of nobel laureates, scientists and ministers’ call to ‘seize the moment’ has largely gone unheeded, as the agreement is full of empty promises and lacking in concrete commitments.

Sunday reading

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 10:39 am, June 3rd, 2012 - 12 comments

Last week I put up some Sunday reading – longer, thoughtful pieces I’d found.  I liked that other people also put up their links, with some very interesting topics.  So I thought I might make it a regular feature.  I’d put up a couple of interesting things that I’d come across in the week, and other people could share their links.

Countdown: 36 days to go

Written By: Ben Clark - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 16th, 2012 - 11 comments

There are 72 days to the Olympics, which is what many people are counting down to – but the planet will be much more interested in the Rio+20 conference in 36 days.  This is the chance for world leaders to put global society on a sustainable path.

Losing the debate on global warming

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:03 pm, April 15th, 2012 - 155 comments

The facts don’t seem to matter when it comes to our understanding of climate change.  As the evidence grows stronger and stronger, so too, apparently, does public skepticism.

Earth Hour

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:24 pm, March 31st, 2012 - 31 comments

OK – so we’re a bit late with this – but it’s Earth Hour, 8:30 – 9:30pm NZ time.

Weather bomb

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:12 am, March 3rd, 2012 - 113 comments

Keep safe during the “weather bomb”. It will be good practice for the future.