science

Categories under science

A note to the idiots. Weather is not climate.

Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, January 16th, 2010 - 56 comments

When you get a cold snap in the local weather, it means that somewhere else got somewhat warmer. Weather is a case of local shifts in energy balances. Climate changes on the other hand are an overall shifting due to underlying changes in energy inflows and retention. You can really only see them looking at […]

Wishart. Research kiddie.

Written By: - Date published: 5:22 pm, January 11th, 2010 - 62 comments

This is just too funny. One of Ian Wisharts sources in AirCon which he quoted from ‘verbatim’ turns out to have been a kiddies resource from 1999 – which he still mis-interpreted. Gareth at Hot-topic has been tearing apart some of Wisharts recent posturing, and posted this comment Wishart, responding to some prodding, says this […]

A Potty Peer making money off future misery.

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, January 9th, 2010 - 72 comments

Gareth over at Hot-Topic has written a delightful post “Popgun for hire: A$20,000 detailing one person who is making money off climate change. No it isn’t the scientists. It is our favorite Potty Peer – Christopher, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. Some of the CCDs have been saying that there is a “climate change industry” and […]

Great balls of fire

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, January 6th, 2010 - 15 comments

The Kepler Telescope was launched into space and began transmitting data last year. It’s job is to find evidence of planets outside our solar system, especially Earth-like ones. It is the first telescope that will be able to detect such small planets on orbits in their stars’ habitable zones (where the temperature is right for liquid […]

Final thoughts for 2009: Looking at deep time

Written By: - Date published: 5:03 pm, December 31st, 2009 - 64 comments

Well it is the end of 2009. So here are some final thoughts on the implications of the political shifts in the climate change debates this year. It has been marked from my viewpoint of an irreverable shift from arguing with CCDs (climate change deniers) to CCSs (climate change skeptics) which on the whole has […]

Rising temperatures – what impact on armed conflict?

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, December 24th, 2009 - 15 comments

Reproduced with permission from Kotare – The Strategist This is the unspoken issue with climate change. What are the human impacts of climate change. Where will the wars happen? This study (h/t Crikey Creek) looks at the likely impact that rising temperatures, caused by climate change, will have on armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa… “this […]

Those childish people of Northern European descent.

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, December 23rd, 2009 - 12 comments

Poring around the nets while I’m on holiday is turning out to be quite interesting looking at summaries of science. I’ve been picking out some for discussion here. Here is a post from Knol with a summary on why Europeans are so pale. They discuss well-known ultraviolet / vitamin D linkage with the consequent diseases. […]

Climate Change arguments in a GIF

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, December 22nd, 2009 - 65 comments

Information is Beautiful recently produced the image below summarizing the various arguments between about climate change. Click on the image to see the full version. hat-tip: Open Parachute

Mass layoffs, layoff the boys.

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, December 22nd, 2009 - 6 comments

There are always consequences to the type of mass unemployment that we’re starting to see in NZ at present. However there looks like being an unexpected one. Spontaneous abortion of male fetuses as a response to mass layoffs. The Economist science section has an article “Girls on top” that discusses this. According to Ralph Catalano […]

Time to up the pressure on our leaders

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, December 22nd, 2009 - 38 comments

Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo makes the case that the failure of our leaders at Copenhagen means the time has come to intensify the pressure on them, including through non-violent civil disobedience and direct action. Hat tip: Greenpeace blog.

Oh yeah, SPEEDholes

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, December 22nd, 2009 - 7 comments

Could making the surface of cars rough be a cheap and esay way to boost fuel efficiency, thereby saving oil and helping tackle climate change? The idea comes from the dimples on golf-balls, which hold a thin layer of air to the ball, lessening turbulence and drag. And, amazingly, it appears to work: [the full segment on […]

Today’s climate protest in Wgtn

Written By: - Date published: 6:09 pm, December 21st, 2009 - 26 comments

Two protests today successfully highlighted the role of New Zealand’s agricutural industry and business community in contributing to climate change. The first protest involved a blockade of the NZ Stock Exchange entrance and resulted in nine arrests. In the second action two activists scaled the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for […]

Those hard to find WIMPs

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, December 21st, 2009 - 25 comments

There have been some new results from the search for WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) at the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) in Minnesota. This showed up in The Economist science section last week with an excellent summary of what they were looking for and why in the post “An early Christmas present?. Around a […]

Climate Direct Action

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, December 21st, 2009 - 90 comments

Text from John Darroch a couple of minutes ago: hey just hanging ten stories up the mfat building in welly protesting against fonterror 🙂 regarding climate change Nice one John – according to NZPA you’re only four stories up. Hope you get your point across and make it down safely! Great to see some action […]

Sustainable living resources

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, December 21st, 2009 - 33 comments

I’m trying not to get too depressed about the lack of an outcome at Copenhagen. As one analyst put it – “Leaders came to Copenhagen to rewrite history and left having made a few notes in the margin”. Not good enough. However, with or without a formal agreement, it was always going to come down […]

Failing the future

Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, December 20th, 2009 - 99 comments

So Copenhagen has ended in failure. I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. As The Guardian reports: Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism in action The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short […]

A knife edge and an open letter

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, December 19th, 2009 - 5 comments

As the final stages of diplomatic chaos play out in Copenhagen, and with at least the possibility of some truly significant goals emerging, the world is teetering on a knife edge this morning. I hope that Obama has had plenty of time to think about this letter – reposted from SignOn: Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director […]

Words and deeds

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, December 18th, 2009 - 18 comments

Words: Prime Minister John Key has urged the world’s major economies to listen to the voices of vulnerable nations facing climate change. .. The current system of limited participation under the Kyoto Protocol had to be moved to one of “comprehensive global coverage”, he said. “For this to be achieved we need international commitments from […]

Copenhagen violence

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, December 18th, 2009 - 67 comments

Photograph: Christian Charisius/Reuters Earlier in the year there was a lot of media attention on the police tactics at the G20 Summit in London. How depressing to see the same heavy handed approach being deployed in Copenhagen. A reported 100,000 protesters marched in a mostly peaceful event last Saturday, and further marches and events followed […]

Bullet dodged

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, December 17th, 2009 - 76 comments

Well, that could have been embarrassing. John Key on the world stage, along with leaders of other countries in what has been billed the ‘greatest debate on Earth’ had the potential to be very painful. It goes without saying that he would have treated the whole thing as a PR event. National was already preparing […]

The Climate Scoreboard

Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, December 17th, 2009 - 41 comments

More details here.

Worth 1000 words

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, December 16th, 2009 - 72 comments

Cartoon by Nick Anderson.

Why deny: the bought priesthood

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, December 16th, 2009 - 54 comments

There are some very wealthy industries that make their money off burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases. It is in their financial interest to prevent action to tackle climate change, so they fund lobby groups and denier propaganda. There is a large population of ‘useful idiots‘ who soak up this propaganda and repeat it. They […]

Why deny: the useful idiots

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, December 15th, 2009 - 91 comments

According to myth (it seems), Lenin called socialists in the West ‘useful idiots’ – people whose ideological fervour saw them accidentally aid the realpolitik aims of the USSR. Similarly, an army of useful idiots are the greenhouse polluters’ best weapon as they attempt to save their right to pollute for profit. These are people who […]

Sharples: ‘ETS short-sighted, that’s why we supported it’

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 14th, 2009 - 27 comments

I could hardly believe my ears when I heard Waatea News on RNZ this morning. Pita Sharples admitted that the Maori Party knew supporting National’s ETS would mean worse environmental outcomes and would cost the country $110 billion in subsidies for polluters but they did it anyway to keep the price of fuel a bit […]

US Style Cow Stalls – what aspiration!

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, December 14th, 2009 - 46 comments

In a year when New Zealand factory farming practices for pigs (and earlier for chickens) have been widely exposed and shocked the country, our dairy industry is looking at adopting similar practices for dairy cows. In a year when climate change has been on the world agenda as never before, our dairy industry is attempting […]

Why deny: the lobby groups/polluters

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, December 14th, 2009 - 93 comments

This is the first in a three part series on the climate change denial industry. I’m trying to understand why there is such a powerful, well-funded, and ideologically solid body of opposition to a body of scientific evidence that even the scientists employed by one of the chief denier lobby groups called “undeniable” (in a […]

Deniers are traitors

Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, December 11th, 2009 - 116 comments

Strongly worded piece by Chris Trotter this morning: In the war for nature, the deniers are traitors … The question of why war, alone of all our endeavours, possesses the power to inspire such tremendous collective exertions and unstinting sacrifices by human communities is not a new one. Ninety-three years ago, the American scholar William […]

Key obstructs Copenhagen talks

Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, December 11th, 2009 - 41 comments

Thanks to our dear Prime Minister John Key, New Zealand is being branded an international ‘fossil’ on climate change. Stuff.co.nz reports Prime Minister John Key’s comments on climate change have come to the world’s attention, earning New Zealand a “fossil of the day” award at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations. The awards are a hall […]

Call of the week

Written By: - Date published: 7:19 am, December 11th, 2009 - 8 comments

Fitzsimons: If Barack Obama comes to Copenhagen saying ‘yes we can do much more’ will the Prime Minister say ‘no we can’t, but can I still have a photo-op?’

This is climate change

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, December 10th, 2009 - 82 comments

Climate change has melted the sea ice where polar bears catch seals. Starving, they are turning to cannibalism. Here a male bear takes the remains of a cub, which it had taken from its mother. This is climate change. This is just the beginning. I have a terrible feeling that this picture is an omen of things […]

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