science

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climate change (1,366)
- COP26 (1)
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global warming (395)

Choices, choices

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:32 am, April 1st, 2011 - 21 comments

In the last Budget, National cut the corporate tax rate to 28%, which costs $400 million a year and comes into effect today. It also cut $200 million a year from early childhood education and tertiary funding in the same Budget, while borrowing billions. When the government cuts public services it is because it chooses […]

“Boosting science and innovation”

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:19 pm, March 15th, 2011 - 9 comments

No Right Turn says all that is required on another of Nationals aspirational failures.

For the past year, the government has been talking a lot about “boosting science and innovation” as the “keys to economic growth”. Today, we saw the reality behind that talk, with news that NIWA is planning to sack 5% of its total workforce:

Blazing Fruit

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:11 am, March 13th, 2011 - 7 comments

Apropos of nothing in particular, one of my favourite poems.

The accelerations of the quake

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:51 am, February 24th, 2011 - 36 comments

When I looked at Geonet this morning, I found this image mapping the velocity of the earth movements in the 6.3 magnitude Lyttelton quake. It is astonishing.

With ground accelerations of up to 220% of earths gravity measured near the epicentre and 80% of gravity around the central business district it would have clearly exceeded the design specifications of many buildings.

Welcome to the new normal

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:43 pm, February 14th, 2011 - 53 comments

Look at the international media these days and what do we see? Oil prices rising due to peak oil. Extreme weather events due to climate change. Rising food prices due to peak oil increasing production costs, climate change destroying crops and resource depletion. And, in the most exposed countries, governments falling in revolution.

Climate Change: Oceans

Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 11th, 2011 - 7 comments

Skeptical Science has posted a very interesting video with Dr. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg running through the current known climate science and associated risks on oceans. Our civilizations have both direct and indirect dependence on oceans. The implications of destroying the ecosystems there is probably going to impact earlier than most of the other effects of our current unrestricted CO2 emissions.

Extreme weather: Yasi

Written By: r0b - Date published: 6:02 am, February 3rd, 2011 - 23 comments

By the time this is posted Yasi will have hit Australia. There will be massive damage, and probably loss of life. Most New Zealanders will have friends or family in Australia, perhaps in the areas affected. I’m sure our thoughts are with our cousins over the ditch. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent as a result of climate change. We should all make whatever preparations we can.

An argument for hope?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 6:03 am, January 31st, 2011 - 24 comments

It’s crunch time for humanity and for our current way of life. Ever since the failure of the Copenhagen summit on climate change I have been less than optimistic about the outcome. So the Christmas break was a good time to read Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope by Tim Flannery. An argument for hope was exactly what I was looking for…

Hot? Another Record Year

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 2:01 pm, January 14th, 2011 - 18 comments

To all those deniers who claimed the record cold in January & February in parts of the Northern Hemisphere (and again in December in Britain) proved global warming was a hoax… In fact globally 2010 equalled 2005 as hottest year ever overall, being 0.62C warmer than the twentieth century average (~14C globally). Deniers looked away […]

The Wrath of the Sea

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:59 pm, January 5th, 2011 - 28 comments

Our guest poster looks at the “Warm Arctic / Cool Continents” idea about why Europe and North America have been cold and the Arctic has been so warm over recent years. Quoting Conrad, our guest then skewers ‘skeptics’ with the statement “Or to put it another way: you might not be interested in global warming, but global warming is interested in you.”

Charles Stross: The High Frontier, Redux

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:04 am, December 28th, 2010 - 32 comments

In 2007, Charles Stross a noted science fiction writer wrote a great essay on the known limits to space (without finding some kind of magic toolkit). This is worth reading in its own right. But it also implies why trashing our current life support system through laziness or stupidity is such a silly idea.

Discrete solar technology

Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:29 pm, December 26th, 2010 - 20 comments

Chinese manufacturing and state support is transforming the cost structure of solar technology. This in turn is helping to put in power support for the emerging use of wireless technologies in the developing world. This helps to ensure that less dirty carbon emitting technologies are not used in the developing world.It is hard to see a downside to this state initiative because it makes solar tech cheaper and more available earlier rather than later.

NIWA vs the nutters

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:32 am, December 19th, 2010 - 19 comments

NIWA has had some of their data, methodology, and results checked by the aussies. As expected by anyone who knows something about the subject, they came back with substantially the same result. For the others like the nutters at the CSC and their political allies – well I can just see another conspiracy theory arising…

What NZ could look like with more Cancun failures

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 1:30 pm, December 15th, 2010 - 65 comments

How does large hunks of most of our coastal cities and thousands of acres of farmland being swallowed the sea sound? This neat graphic shows effects of sea level rises from climate change: 1m – roughly in line with official predictions; through 6m – collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; to 14m – doomsday scenario. Even a small rise is catastrophic.

Journos manufacturing the thousand year winter

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:49 pm, December 13th, 2010 - 32 comments

How journalists make a hypothetical question based on a nutty claim and manufacture a sensational headline out of it. The really sensational headline is that western journos appear to have picked up the story from that world renowned nutter Anthony Watts raving about a fictional war between Russia and Poland. It looks like you can only rely on hard checked science news from some of the rational blogs, and a Chinese news agency…

Cancun another non event

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:35 am, December 13th, 2010 - 13 comments

The UN climate change talks at Cancun, Mexico, are finished. There were some positives, but not on the big issues. Reduction targets are still voluntary and still too low. We’re still on a catastrophic collision course with the laws of physics.

A Stupid Business

Written By: Bill - Date published: 9:22 am, December 9th, 2010 - 9 comments

The Commissioner for the Environment’s “Lignite and Climate Change: The High Cost of Low Grade Coal” has been released today. Its release had been postponed because of concerns that it would become entangled with reports concerning the Pike River Mine disaster.

When I’m 64

Written By: r0b - Date published: 10:31 am, December 5th, 2010 - 14 comments

There seems to have been a reasonable breakthrough in research to reverse ageing. Is it a good thing? If you think the world has resource and environmental problems now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you think we have social injustice and insane inequities in wealth now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Green China

Written By: r0b - Date published: 1:45 pm, December 4th, 2010 - 26 comments

I confess that I am used to thinking of China as a polluter, not much concerned with environmental standards or green technology. I am very pleased indeed to find that I am wrong. Green technology is yet another area where China is drawing ahead of America and much of the West.

Only greed can save us

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:18 am, December 3rd, 2010 - 63 comments

As a society we can’t seem to bring ourselves to take action on climate change. We haven’t got the will to save ourselves.

The failure at Copenhagen, and the non event that is Cancun, are in the process of proving that.

It looks like only greed can save us.

Climate change irony for farmers

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:36 pm, December 1st, 2010 - 121 comments

When they’re not polluting our rivers or fighting animal welfare laws, our farmers, the ‘guardians of the land’, are opposing having to pay for their greenhouse emissions. Now, with the Earth having just clocked up its warmest 12 months since records began, farmers are scratching their heads at the early start to the summer drought.

Unconscionable

Written By: Bill - Date published: 3:00 pm, November 29th, 2010 - 24 comments

It seems I’m not alone in feeling outrage at attempts to bury any sensible debate on the shape and extent of New Zealand’s coal operations

Cancun: No will to save ourselves

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:25 am, November 27th, 2010 - 53 comments

On Monday the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference begins in Cancun, Mexico. This is the successor to last year’s spectacularly failed Copenhagen Summit. Nothing useful will be accomplished there. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that we lack the will to save ourselves.

Doing nothing in the face of climate change crisis

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:50 pm, November 22nd, 2010 - 23 comments

The Commissioner for the Environment says New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions will be 26% above 1990 levels in 2020, compared to the Nats’ promise to cut them by 10-20% – leaving us with a $1b bill. Worse, the IEA shows that even if we and other countries meet our promised cuts its only half of what’s needed to avert disaster.

Can the Left save the world?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 7:37 am, November 22nd, 2010 - 196 comments

It takes many people working together to achieve anything really worthwhile. This also applies to our biggest project yet. Saving a planet. So why can’t we get started? Because human society based around the market can not do it. The answers will only com from the Left. The Left parties, Labour in particular, need to get serious and move Leftward.

Climategate anniversary

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:38 am, November 20th, 2010 - 102 comments

It has been a year since the CRU emails were stolen and the “climategate” “scandal” broke. There’s an interesting summary at the ClimateSight blog. Meanwhile the record temperatures keep rolling in, the ice keeps melting all over the world, and The Guardian asks “Is climate science disinformation a crime against humanity?”.

As Nero Fiddles…

Written By: Bill - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 13th, 2010 - 74 comments

Climate change and a shoals of dirty little red herrings would seem to go together like salt and pepper or cheese and pickle.

A time of trouble, a time for action

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 5 comments

The release of 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war today highlights a much broader issue for New Zealand. As the world moves into uncertainty, some commentators call it a ‘new new world order’, New Zealand must establish itself definitively, cementing the values we wish to hold true for the coming century.