science

Categories under science

The hoax revealed?

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, September 25th, 2008 - 23 comments

Incredibly, leading rightwingers including John Key, Maurice Williamson, Lockwood Smith, Rodney Hide, and Roger Kerr still don’t accept the overwhelming evidence for climate change. A cynic would say that’s just because it’s in their interests to engage in this wishful thinking. But maybe that’s too harsh, maybe they’ve just been suckered in by sophisicated marketing, like this: [hattip […]

Video: Nats head in sand on environment

Written By: - Date published: 4:55 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 48 comments

Boosting their green credentials is not proving as straightforward as National would like, as this video that’s doing the rounds shows.

Another leak

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, September 9th, 2008 - 58 comments

God, another leak from National, this time their research, science and technology policy. From Mallard’s press release: “Mr Key should not only be embarrassed, he should be very worried about the shambolic show he is running. Contrary to his desperate claims last week, I did not find any of these policies in any café. Or […]

Whom to believe? (3)

Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, September 1st, 2008 - 26 comments

John Key tells us that National hasn’t decided yet what it would spend its extra borrowing on, what projects would be PPPs, what roads would be tolled under National. How, then, to explain this from last week’s Agenda? RAWDON Give me an example of a toll here, give me an example of what it will […]

Greens win better ETS

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, August 27th, 2008 - 21 comments

The Greens have won some very good improvements to the ETS in exchange for their support. The most important is $1 billion over 15 years to insulate low-income homes and subsidise upgrades to insulation of higher income homes. That’s a really positive development; all New Zealand homes will finally have decent insulation (Labour has done well […]

Greens call for public input on ETS

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, August 22nd, 2008 - 22 comments

One thing you can always say for the Greens, they’re democratic to their core. Currently, they find themselves facing a tough choice – whether or not to support Labour’s Emissions Trading Scheme – and, true to their democratic principles, they’re asking for advice from the public on their decision. Jeanette Fitzsimmons outlines the following pros […]

Mythbusting: Half of new generation is thermal

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, August 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments

Reading National’s energy policy last week I was surprised to learn that of 1942MW of new generation that has come online since 2000 1073MW of that has been thermal*. Sure enough, John Key is going around using that as a ground for National’s policy of building more gas power plants and giving up on the […]

Consquences on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, August 21st, 2008 - 70 comments

Deputy leader Bill English yesterday late afternoon released what could barely be described as National’s policy on climate change. I was sorry to see such little detail on what they planned, despite his saying (again) that their structure would be in place within nine months. Surely they must know what they plan to do then? I also noted […]

Key demands we publish full quote

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, August 20th, 2008 - 53 comments

John Key called us to task in his interview with Wammo today: “every leftwing blogger out there has a field-day going on and on about the fact that Labour say I said climate change is a hoax…they should just get their facts right down at The Standard because the facts are I said ‘Kyoto is […]

Shouldn’t you be dead by now?

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, July 15th, 2008 - 38 comments

Australia’s ABC has a somewhat unusual online game to explain the impact of individuals on climate change to children. It’s called ‘Planet Slayer‘. The main part of the game involves answering questions (which really only apply to adults) around use of cars, house size etc to estimate your annual greenhouse gas emissions.Your cumulative emissions are […]

Radio National

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 11th, 2008 - 3 comments

The day that National Radio publicises a ‘survey’ produced by Matthew Hooton is a very strange day. That day is today. Hooton’s ‘independent’ ‘survey’ finds flaws in the Emissions Trading Scheme. ‘Amazing’. For those with long memories, it reminds one of a survey the Sunday News ran back in the Dark Ages (early ’96) when […]

Greens discover Nats full of hot air

Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 2nd, 2008 - 46 comments

A classic ‘cake and eat it’ from Crosby/Textor National has been their approach to climate change – stating they support tackling this issue but opposing every policy that has been developed. The latest example is their position on the ETS, which No Right Turn explains beautifully: Reading the National Party’s minority report [PDF] on the […]

BBC/TVE Earth Report special: NZ

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, June 12th, 2008 - 15 comments

BBC and TVE screen an Earth Report special this week focussing on New Zealand’s objective to become carbon neutral: New Zealand, host for World Environment Day 2008, plans to be the first to create a completely carbon neutral economy. Their target is 2020 and they have ambitious plans to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions with […]

Greens must not let ETS fail

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, May 28th, 2008 - 45 comments

The Dompost reports that the Greens will not vote for the Emissions Trading Scheme if the introduction of transport fuels into the scheme and the end of free allocation of credits are delayed. Without the Greens, the Bill will probably not pass. I have a lot of sympathy for the Greens’ position. The ETS is […]

Ambitious for big oil

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, May 27th, 2008 - 74 comments

We’ve all heard John Key bang on about his ambitions for New Zealand’s infrastructure and now one of my sources within the National Party has tipped me off that as part of their infrastructure policy they are planning to announce a plan for a four lane highway between Wellington and Auckland. As I recall this […]

Sockpuppet

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, May 20th, 2008 - 18 comments

Key lacks leadership on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, May 19th, 2008 - 26 comments

National has pulled its support for the emissions trading scheme which is intended to set limits on the emission of greenhouse gases and penalise polluters. This is the latest in a long line of Key’s shifting positions on climate change. First climate change was a “complete and utter hoax”. Then as the environmental mood gained momentum […]

Key’s green mask slips

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, May 19th, 2008 - 33 comments

Last year John Key announced National’s ‘Blue-Green’ Strategy. It contained the first shadow of acknowledgment from National that climate change is a serious issue: a target to reduce greenhouse gas emission to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050. Of course, setting a target for a time when most of your MPs will be dead is […]

Rio Tinto threats backfire

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, May 14th, 2008 - 72 comments

Rio Tinto’s threat of capital strike appears to have backfired on them, with a political consensus emerging that the multinational has overplayed its hand on this one and some even starting to question whether we might be better to just shut the smelter down and be done with it. CAFCA were particularly blunt: Campaign Against […]

Rio Tinto threatens NZ with capital strike

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, May 13th, 2008 - 87 comments

Multi-national minerals company Rio Tinto is threatening to close its Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in Bluff and move its production offshore if the Emissions Trading Scheme is enacted because they say it will increase power prices. This is not the first time Rio Tinto has held New Zealand to ransom using the threat of closing […]

Transport’s inclusion in ETS delayed

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, May 6th, 2008 - 19 comments

The Government has delayed the inclusion of transport in the Emissions Trading Scheme from 2009 to 2011. On the surface, that seems to be a back down or a reduction in the Government’s commitment to tackling climate change but then you have to ask yourself what is the point of the Emissions Trading Scheme? As […]

Right answer, wrong question

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, April 30th, 2008 - 3 comments

It’s not often National gets something right but their latest flip-flop, on bio-fuels, is a good policy (well, partially and for the wrong reasons). National has announced they will no longer be supporting the bio-fuel requirement in petrol because it may put up the price of petrol a few cents. The bio-fuel requirement was always […]

Flat-Earthers heart climate change deniers

Written By: - Date published: 3:19 pm, April 23rd, 2008 - 4 comments

The Climate Science Coalition is the last of a dying breed; a rabid, climate change denying lobby group. Of late, they have been performing a desperate, last-ditch attempt to slow the introduction of a carbon trading scheme. And, now, it looks like they’ve received some heavy-weight support in the form of the venerable Flat Earth Society:

Twin peaks

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, April 22nd, 2008 - 50 comments

We have all heard of the peak oil crisis that is already manifesting itself in fuel prices. Now, consider peak food, the point where our ability to produce food peaks even as demand grows. Wheat was the first plant to be domesticated, around 10,000 years ago. Our civilisations are built on the excess calories available […]

Lockwood: unsurprisingly relaxed about global warming

Written By: - Date published: 4:59 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 28 comments

National retreads deny climate change

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, April 2nd, 2008 - 36 comments

Lockwood Smith gave us student debt. Maurice Williamson gave us traffic jams. Now they want to give us global warming. Just days after Al Gore launched his $300m worldwide climate change campaign National retreads Maurice Williamson and Lockwood Smith are refusing to answer questions about whether or not they even believe climate change is happening. […]

Al Gore’s new climate change campaign

Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, April 1st, 2008 - 2 comments

Al Gore has just launched a $300 million, bipartisan campaign to try to push climate change higher on the nation’s political agenda. The website is www.wecansolveit.org – you can see the debut ad, “Anthem,” here. The campaign plans to bring together “unlikely bedfellows” of differing political stripes and use shows like American Idol to promote […]

What would Jesus drive?

Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 26th, 2008 - 10 comments

The Vatican’s update of sins to include issues of social justice and environment reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a friend from the US. She was telling me that one of the “surprise” groups to come out in support of tougher environmental regulation over there were a number of the large evangelical […]

Calling coal to account

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, March 26th, 2008 - 18 comments

New Zealand’s coal industry is a mess of contradictions. We worry about carbon emissions and Kyoto while State-owned Solid Energy exports coal to dirty Chinese factories. Rather than being energy-efficiently shipped out of Greymouth, coal from the West Coast is taken by rail over the Southern Alps because taxpayer-subsidised Toll gives SOE Solid Energy and Pike River a cut-price deal to haul […]

Birds of a feather…

Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, March 14th, 2008 - 28 comments

Frogblog covers Muriel Newman’s column in the Dom yesterday: “Climate change, we didn’t do it” [whew! back to my environmentally pollutive and destructive ways then]. Muriel’s source for this assertion is the recent (and delightfully innocuously named) International Conference on Climate Change. The purpose of the conference is to promote doubt over the increasing scientific […]

Most Aussies support Kyoto protocol

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 26 comments

The ABC reports: “Today Australia becomes an official member of the Kyoto club after the initial ratification documents were lodged with the United Nations 90 days ago. And a new poll has found that 64 per cent of Australians support Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s act to ratify the Kyoto protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions. […]

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