science

Categories under science

What happened..

Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, September 4th, 2010 - 14 comments

New Zealand is one of the oddest places geologically (Japan is similar) in the world because of our position between two  plates and because we are at the twist where the plates change how they interact with each other. But the position of the Christchurch earthquake is a long way from the plate boundaries. Highly Allochthonous has a look at the mechanism of the quake.

Thank the regulators

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 4th, 2010 - 109 comments

The Christchurch earthquake was a shallow high magnitude earthquake close to a urban population centre. That is the disaster scenario for planners. It is a disaster, but not a major disaster. The enforcement of building regulations ensured that the city took damage, but survived largely intact.

Democratic Social Economy Part 1

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 3rd, 2010 - 40 comments

Due to the discrepancies in the spread of knowledge the free-market is irrational but there is no doubt that we, collectively, have the needed information to make more rational decisions. The problem that occurs is that neither the knowledge nor the tools to help make rational decisions on that information are readily available. Is there a tech solution?

Ramping up renewables

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 28th, 2010 - 7 comments

Bryan Walker at Hot Topic looks at the large scale renewable energy projects that are being developed in various countries around the world. The contrast with the dated approach to energy from Gerry Brownlee is quite striking. That has been described as “The Government’s energy strategy prioritises drilling and mining for more oil and coal, while providing virtually no stimulation for the development of renewable energy and clean technology. It … makes no attempt to set measurable emissions reduction targets.”

Here Be the Braindead: NZCSC Tries Science by Court, Instead of Actually Doing Science

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, August 17th, 2010 - 11 comments

Believing that a law suit will make climate change disappear is up there with believing the king can turn back the tides (which poor, maligned Canute was trying to disprove, btw). Nonetheless, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, which appears to know little about the climate and less about science, is giving it a go. Nick S takes a more detailed look at the issue.

Attacking NIWA

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, August 16th, 2010 - 98 comments

What do you do when you find science inconvenient to your ideology? Why, you strike it down! Burn the heretics! Or in the modern equivalent, you set the lawyers on them, and try and have the facts declared illegal.

The dire probabilities of unusual weather

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, August 13th, 2010 - 32 comments

In Morning Report yesterday there was a clear question and statement on the difference between weather events and climate. This is a question that always seems to confuse our CCD’s (climate change deniers and skeptics). So it is worth examining it a bit in the view of some of the unusual weather that has been happening recently. A increased frequency of such events is going to be the main effect of climate change over time, leading eventually to famines.

The new food crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, August 13th, 2010 - 21 comments

Climate change, peak oil, resource exhaustion, and over-population are combing to cause a new food crisis. Grains supply half the calories we consume directly and feed much of our live-stock. The prices of those are skyrocketing because supply can’t match demand. Starting with Russia, major exporters are limiting the amount they send abroad to keep what they have for their own people.

Do we feel lucky?

Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, August 7th, 2010 - 23 comments

“Global climate talks appear to have slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, the chief U.S. delegate said Friday, adding that some countries were reneging on promises they made last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions”.

We’re hot as hell

Written By: - Date published: 7:19 am, August 6th, 2010 - 70 comments

Extract from an article by Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. “I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.”

The lungs of the planet

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, July 29th, 2010 - 38 comments

The warning indicators of an impending ecological collapse keep piling up. Forests get most of the headlines, but in many ways the oceans are the lungs of the planet. And they’ve been smoking 30 a day for too long.

Loophole in new ETS regulations will increase emissions

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, July 19th, 2010 - 13 comments

The ETS-waste regulations currently being consulted on by the Government include a loophole that will actually increase greenhouse gas production in order to save polluters money. Who wrote the regs for the Government? A company that will be able to help landfills exploit this loophole by paying less whilst polluting more.

The peer goes potty

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 pm, July 15th, 2010 - 16 comments

At Hot Topic, Gareth has a post on Christopher Monckton attempting to stifle the well-justified criticism of himself . For some reason he seems to think that it is ok for him to criticize working scientists despite having little knowledge of the subjects. However he seems to think they should not be able to analyze or criticize his level of stupid ineptitude.

Climate change, bikinis, climate change, bikinis

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 pm, July 14th, 2010 - 16 comments

Are swimsuit specials a thoughtful, clever way of arousing interest in climate change? Or are they little more than sexist idiocy? Are you curious enough to find out? Read this from the Guardian…

Good news: Solar powered flight

Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 16 comments

An experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test flight successfully Thursday, proof of concept that an aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to fly all night. The eventual goal is to fly it round the world…

Sceptics face yawning credibility gap

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, July 5th, 2010 - 34 comments

We know that the vast majority of climate scientists support the explanation of anthropogenic climate change set out by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. That majority is now quantified in the first study of its kind published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Expert credibility in climate change.

Key comes clean on the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, June 30th, 2010 - 28 comments

In a moment of uncharacteristic political honesty, John Key has come clean on his ETS. It loads “disproportionate” costs on to householders. National’s scheme is all about keeping things sweet for their business mates – muffling the price signal that an ETS is supposed to send by (as usual) socialising the costs.

Crock of the Week – “The Medieval Warming Crock”

Written By: - Date published: 5:55 pm, June 26th, 2010 - 25 comments

I’m tired of hearing about the ‘medieval warming period’ and ‘hockey-stick’, which are respectively almost two decades and a decade old. It came up in comments today again, and I get the impression that CCDs are firstly euro-centric and secondly never seem to look at the current evidence. There have been many studies that substantially support the ‘hockey-stick’ and none that support the MWP. The Crock of the Week did this video explaining it…

Crock of the Week – ‘Climategate’

Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, June 26th, 2010 - 24 comments

Peter Sinclair in Crock of the week uses some old classic movie and TV footage to point out the debunking the ‘climategate’ myth. Quite simply this hack of the e-mails hasn’t changed any of the science of climate change and is as ineffectual as most of the anti-science inquisition has been over the last century. It really just shows how pathetic and ineffectual that the CCDs are becoming.

The ETS is a price signal

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, June 25th, 2010 - 44 comments

The point of an ETS isn’t to just blindly pay more, it is to change our behaviour so that we don’t have to. National don’t get it, so they have brought us the worst of all possible ETS schemes. Badly designed and devoid of vision. An ETS with all of the costs and none of the benefits.

The harsh reality of climate change

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, June 19th, 2010 - 1,346 comments

The most comprehensive collection and analysis of global temperature trends comes from NOAA.Their global temperatures report for May 2010 makes sobering reading. Since 1880, the globally hottest 10 years have happened in the last 15 years. It looks like 2010 will beat the previous hottest year in 2005, and we’re still at the least energetic part of the sunspot cycle.

Let’s not rush things

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, June 18th, 2010 - 7 comments

President Obama has just come out and said the US and the world needs to get off its oil addiction. But, just as we’ve been talking about climate change for nearly two centuries, before it was even a problem, and done nothing about it, Presidents have been declaring its time to end the oil age for 40 years and nothing has changed. Why can’t we get serious about saving ourselves?

Creepy like Rodney, but intelligent

Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, June 12th, 2010 - 14 comments

If you have any interest in robotics or AI, or just want to be creeped-out by just how life-like the latest robots really are, you have to see this footage to believe it. It’s the spawn of DARPA’s Learning Locomotion Project and employs some very clever heuristics to allow the robot to learn how to […]

Solar storms: harden your networks – its getting warmer.

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, June 11th, 2010 - 37 comments

The sun is emerging from its deep sleep of the Solar Minimum. The increased sensitivity of human networks from satellites to power grids is starting to worry people who know what they’re talking about enough to cause them to have held a meeting on it. The sun produces sunspots in a reasonably regular eleven year […]

The tiresome title of Professor Emeritus

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, June 9th, 2010 - 28 comments

There has been a series of posts at Hot-topic and other sites looking at the actions and background of climate change skeptical scientists. But what is fascinating generally is that many are retired professors far from the cut and thrust of the peer reviewing of their work that is a major and critical part of the scientific process. Many people seem to imbue a larger mantle of authority over a title than its meaningless value deserves.

Denier dissected

Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, June 6th, 2010 - 35 comments

“Lord” Christopher Monckton is a high profile climate change denier. Professor John Abraham examines his claims in detail, and shows Monckton to be a serial liar, misrepresenting the science at every turn. What makes a person tell lies that are going to cost us the earth?

A Country Party?

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, June 3rd, 2010 - 34 comments

There’s increasing rumbles in the country side about a Country Party breaking away from National, on the back of the anti-ETS backlash, which National brought upon itself with its behaviour in opposition. A Country Party would be electorally viable. The Left has already splintered into natural fragments now that MMP makes it possible. The Right might be about to do the same.

Fascinating magnetism: a bit of science

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 pm, June 2nd, 2010 - Comments Off on Fascinating magnetism: a bit of science

Audio from an interview by Kim Hill with Gillian Turner, Senior Lecturer in Physics and Geophysics at Victoria University, and author of North Pole, South Pole: the Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earth’s Magnetism.

Climate change deaths

Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, June 2nd, 2010 - 26 comments

Worldwide it is the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record. Heat waves have already killed tens of thousands in the last few years. In India 2010 is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s, and hundreds are dead. While ACT and Federated Farmers bitch and moan about the costs of the ETS, the deaths will keep coming.

National’s ETS chickens home to roost

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, May 27th, 2010 - 23 comments

National is under extraordinary pressure on its ETS, and it seems to be starting to panic. While I can commend them for sticking to their guns (better a gutted ETS than none at all), I don’t have any sympathy over the backlash they are facing. They bought it on themselves.

Who pays for climate change, polluters or taxpayers?

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, May 26th, 2010 - 65 comments

We pay for the need to reduce greenhouse emissions one way or the other. There’s no point complaining about the cost of the ETS on power and fuel. What we should be more pissed off about is that we are being expected to bear half the cost as taxpayers. We have to pay, the question is whether we put the cost on pollution to discourage pollution or we just lump it on taxpayers.

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