If you ever wanted an entertaining, succinct, yet devastating critique of the media handling of Climate Change then John Oliver’s recent attempt from his Last Week Tonight show should be compulsory viewing. Here it is …
@ 01:25 minutes: “The debate about climate change should not be about whether or not it exists but what we should do about it.”
What we should not be doing, is developing unconventional oil technologies like deep sea oil drilling, or fracking, nor should we be opening up any more new coal mines.
This just makes a mockery of political parties that make aspirational statements about New Zealand being carbon neutral in 2030 or 2050 or what ever stupid distant date they care to name that lets them avoid taking action in the here and now.
Bottom line
No Deep Sea Oil Drilling
No New Coal Mines at Mangatangi, or Denniston.
Wind down the rest, starting now.
Anything less is blatant and hypocrisy.
Cancel the government subsidies to the polluters and switch them to renewables industry.
I don’t disagree with you Jenny but civilisation needs to rid itself of its addiction to petroleum but not crashing and burning at the same time. So we need to have a crash carbon diet. The politics of getting there are cursed.
1) A controlled ditching, on our terms with everyone well braced for impact OR
2) A flameout and nosedive from 35,000 feet with champagne still served in first class all the way down.
Let me think what our power elite are going to pick.
Greg when you say the politics are cursed, What do you mean?
Do you mean that the fossil fuel lobby is too powerful for democratic government to oppose?
Fighting climate change is not a technical matter it is a matter of political will, do we not have the political leaders with the needed courage and intelligence and the determination to advocate for even the most minimalist program?
Look this is not extreme. Deep sea oil drilling is something that we never had before and wouldn’t miss. And No New Coal Mines is an extremely minimalist policy. Hardly crashing and burning. If we are committed to starting new coal mines now. We will still be mining coal way into the future for the foreseeable lifetime of these mines, way past the time when we should beginning to grandfather the already existing mines.
It is the prevarication and commitment to Business As Usual position which is the extreme position and will which will result in crash and burn.
We need concrete action in the here and now. But it is not happening. Why not?
Are we waiting for a super storm like Sandy or Haiyan to crash on our shores?
I mean politics will limit how far society goes with measures to address climate change. If a party goes too hard they will lose, if they do not go hard enough then irreparable damage will occur. I am hoping that the democratic system is able to deliver leadership that will be able to stop irreparable damage. Time will tell …
Only grass roots pressure from widespread popular movements and civil society organisations have any hope of pushing Parliament to do the right thing. Any isolated leader, no matter how talented, willing or well intentioned, without these popular movements backing them up will find resistance to change from establishment players pretty much unsurmountable.
This is exactly true CV but it is a balancing act. Popular protest alone won’t do it. Neither will government ministers in isolation acting alone can do anything. There has to be a melding of the two. Leadership from above is just as important as pressure from below. The model I refer to is the one that made New Zealand Nuclear Weapons Free.
If you remember it was the Labour Party in opposition in league with the huge protest movement that brought the legislation to the floor of parliament. This is the model we need to emulate.
It is one of the main reasons that I call for the Greens to stand out from cabinet, so that they are able to champion and speak for the gains of any popular movement in parliament. Bound by collective cabinet responsibility they will be stifled from giving a voice to such a movement.
And No New Coal Mines is an extremely minimalist policy.
Actually, it’s a rather stupid policy. Coal is a useful resource when it’s not burned to produce electricity.
A better policy would be: No coal mined in NZ will be burned to produce electricity. And yes, that means not selling it to other countries because we can’t guarantee that it won’t be burned.
We need concrete action in the here and now. But it is not happening. Why not?
All indications are that our politicians are owned by the rich and quite possibly the rich in other countries.
All indications are that our politicians are owned by the rich and quite possibly the rich in other countries.
Draco T Bastard
I actually don’t believe that. But politics is a strange thing, it is all about pressure, it takes a very remarkable individual to go against the main flow of opinion, very few have ever managed it, even with a support group around them. Who is giving the lead and applying the pressure and who isn’t. At present the fossil fuel lobby are, and they have as yet not properly met up with a counterbalancing force in society, at least not one that reaches into parliament.
Unlike the current situation, the hugely successful antinuclear movement was able to reach into parliament and influence opinion amongst MPs effectively winning over Government Members Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring, tilting the ballance of power in the house.
We follow much in the steps of the USA and the USA is already a plutocracy.
But the reality is that our politicians aren’t making the changes required by the facts and they’re not making the changes required by the population. So what is driving them to the policies that they do promote and implement if it’s not the two things that they should be making the decisions upon?
And don’t forget the attitudes and recommendations of the civil service bureaucracy and deep state, and how far corporate influences have got in there as well.
Transition towns are at least making a start, and without waiting for permission from the government to do so.
The Blueskin Energy project has resulted from that initiative, and I seem to recall they are intending to open source their project so that it can be duplicated around NZ.
Hi Molly I applaud and support the Transitions Towns initiative where I can. I see them akin to the heroic citizens of the International Brigade that volunteered and went off to confront fascism in Spain. But what we must take from this is that to really defeat international fascism on a global scale there had to be national government and wider society buy in.
I might also add that Transition Towns currently require a contribution of financial and other resources that a large part of the population simply don’t have, no doubt when the crisis hits these efforts will be rapidly scaled up, how successful this will be in protecting the majority of the population is anyone’s guess.
A draft report prepared for the United Nations suggests, out loud, what the U.S. needs to do about CLIMATE CHANGE: Cut emissions to one-tenth of current levels, per person, in less than 40 years.
It’s perilous to say these things in the U.S., where a mere description of the scale of the climate challenge too often invites ridicule and dismissiveness. AMERICANS are each responsible for about 18 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Taking that down 90 percent would mean a drop in emissions to what they were in about 1901 or 1902. Cue ridicule and dismissiveness.
The report is entitled Pathways to ‘Deep Decarbonization’
The study contains detailed sections on each of a dozen large national emitters, including the U.S., China, Russia and the U.K. It suggests to national leaders that cutting carbon may be possible, without ECONOMIC compromise and without fear that they’ll have to go it alone. Such analysis might help them generate the political support they’ll need to make the UN climate negotiations in Paris at the end of 2015 successful.
This is where we come in. We are not one of the dozen large national emitters, but we could give them a lead and an example to point to.
The big polluters are all waiting on each other to make the first move.
What New Zealand does in 2015 could make or break these talks. There is still time for the main opposition parties to start campaigning for a blanket ban on Deep Sea Oil drilling and No New Coal Mines, in 2015.
Our new government could then go to these talks as a world leader and openly say that we have taken these iconic positions to show this country’s seriousness in fighting climate change.
This would truly see climate change become an election hot potato. The government would be left floundering, it is their weakest performing portfolio. On the issue of climate change they have no answers, they are in effect the emperor without clothes.
80% of the population are opposed to deep sea oil drilling,
As Gareth Hughes of the Greens has said, “If we really want to beat Deep Sea Oil Drilling we have to fight it on climate change grounds.”
60% want the government to do more on climate change.
This is a large constituency just waiting to be tapped.
From the report:
Talking about cutting emissions back to 1901 levels should strike many as crazy talk. It would be nice if it were crazy talk. Instead, it’s a WORTHWHILE description of the challenge at hand.
There’s no question that there are still “technically feasible” pathways to a low-carbon economy. The bad news is that, without political buy-in, exploring technical feasibility is basically a parlor game. And political buy-in isn’t going to come about in the U.S. through reports suggesting that AMERICANS should reduce their emissions to a tenth.
Elected officials can use studies like this to generate support for clean-energy policies. But in some places, like the U.S., the same studies can hinder policy development. It’s a chicken-and-egg thing.
New Zealand could be that egg from which global action could hatch.
… national National government Party buy in. FIFY.
Same goes for child poverty, and every other issue under the sun. The Right is lost in belief and proud of it*. Either that or they’re intent on murder-suicide with the rest of us as the unwilling partners.
We would not be having this debate otherwise.
*I include Margaret Thatcher in this – her science-driven early (for a politician) recognition of the problem was dwarfed by the damage her dogma did.
if they admit to climate change then they wont be able to get any more soap or elastic for their underpants.
not to mention the estates in the hamptons and the 10 car garages, international travel adnd esxpensive hotels and personal assistants (slaves).
it means the end of the “system”.
show me any politician will go against the material things of no practical use produced by industrialism and the tawdry dreams manufactured by the dream factories.
sorry folks but humanity is just going to have to ride this one out.
tough titty.
in the meantime the seas will be acidified and species extinction will severely curtail the ability to continue unlimited growth and expansion.
The media problem is more general than this. When an established fact is at odds with either a significant number of viewers’ opinions or at odds with elite opinion, the media won’t report the fact. They will inevitably slip into reporting what the polls say as a means of avoiding taking a position.
It’s strange: the institutions that we employ to inform us about the facts that we don’t have the time or resources to find out for ourselves end up reporting to us what our uninformed opinion of those facts is. It’s an endless loop of mutually reinforcing derp.
Sometimes they’ll even report a fact as a fact and in the next sentence slip into talking about public opinion as a way of discounting it.
Look up the “Kochtopus” to see how big money influences what we got told in the media. From funding friendly research, to publishing only the results that are ‘acceptable’, to owning the media channels and spin merchants. It’s a complete system of disinformation.
A complete reform of the media is long overdue. Professional journalism plays an important role in a healthy society – metaphorically they are like the eyes and ears of the body of society.
No wonder we are deaf and blind to what is really going on.
The system of global media story syndication, evisceration of counterbalancing local investigative journalism, and funding of right leaning think tanks which pump out a continuous series of credible looking ‘news worthy’ discussion points, is how it is done.
It’s nowhere near perfect of course. Look at how we are able to discuss what we are discussing now. But you will note their many legal and technological attempts to start squeezing down discourse and dissent over the internet.
My usual gripe with ‘climate change’ which i will habitually mention here: depletion of affordable fossil fuels within 20 years is the main problem. It is going to lead to a chaotic and rapid decarbonisation of the global economy as well as a very limited ability to deal with the longer term effects of the climate change which is already inevitable.
We have this short time period within which to get NZs social, economic and infrastructure systems in place. If we do not use this remaining window of opportunity wisely, we will be making life for future generations of Kiwis much harder than it needs to be.
Despite Hurricane Sandy blowing right through their campaign and throwing their schedules into disarray, both Obama and Romney remained steadfast in giving the climate as little air time as possible.
And for the first time since 1984 climate change wasn’t mentioned in any of the presidential debates.
“End Climate Silence”
Here’s a remarkable thing. Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama – with the exception of one throwaway line each – have mentioned climate change in the wake of hurricane Sandy.
They are struck dumb. During a Romney rally in Virginia on Thursday, a protester held up a banner and shouted “What about climate? That’s what caused this monster storm”. The candidate stood grinning and nodding as the crowd drowned out the heckler by chanting “USA! USA!”. Romney paused, then resumed his speech as if nothing had happened. The poster the man held up? It said “End climate silence”.
While other Democrats expound the urgent need to act, the man they support will not take up the call. Barack Obama, responding to his endorsement by the mayor of New York, mentioned climate change last week as “a threat to our children’s future”. Otherwise, I have been able to find nothing; nor have the many people I have asked on Twitter. Something has gone horribly wrong.
The studied silence around climate change in the US presidential election race, in 2012 mirrored the same studied silence on the climate change that was observed by all parties in the New Zealand elections the previous year.
And sadly in David Cunliffe’s recent inaugural 2014 election speech given at the Labour Party congress last week.
In the wake of the severe flooding and storms in the North that look to become a regular seasonal event.
Just like Obama and Romney in 2012, after Sandy, if he continues this studied silence David Cunliffe risks becoming isolated and embarrassed in his silence over climate change.
My hope is that in deliberately leaving any mention of climate change from his inaugural election speech, that David Cunliffe intends to give this subject the proper attention it deserves and has prepared a dedicated address on climate change that will set out what concrete measures the Labour Party intend to implement on coming into government.
(That any policy can make a difference now): This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won’t make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
“It’s just too late for it,” he says. “Perhaps if we’d gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don’t have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can’t say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do.”
We’ve already pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere to precipitate catastrophe, talk of policy making a difference is delusional.The MSM keep up the pretence we still have control, the truth would cause mass dismay.
Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when “we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn’t know what to do about it”. But once the second world war was under way, “everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday … so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose – that’s what people want.”
James Lovelock
The only difference is that today we don’t anywhere seem to have the necessary gutsy determined political leadership ready to step up to give us that sense of purpose. Leaders who can’t be bought or intimidated or easily fooled. Leaders prepared to go out on a limb to shame the political quislings and cowards and name and denounce the open traitors,
With the self assurance and certainty of purpose to be able to rally the population,
With the sense to listen to the scientific advisors, and with the courage to be able to stand up in the face of the arrogant and powerful plutocrats determined to drive us deeper and further and faster down the road to disaster.
“on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do.”
That to me is the nub of the whole issue especially in our western middle class lives – we will do what we want and that is the way we roll – selfish, ignorant, delusional and greedy – fuck the planet, fuck the developing nations, fuck the poor, fuck the future generations, fuck everyone and everything that isn’t me – guess what human, mother nature doesn’t like that attitude. So for the many that are repelled by the attitudes expressed above – what are YOU doing to prepare, what part of the “immense amount to do” are you getting on with.
So for the many that are repelled by the attitudes expressed above – what are YOU doing to prepare, what part of the “immense amount to do” are you getting on with.
blockquote>….he started insisting to anyone who would listen that Middle-earth was doomed, that there was no hope left in elves or dying Númenor, that Sauron’s final victory would surely come before—oh, I forget what the date was; it was some year or other not too far from now. He spent hours reading through books of lore, making long lists of reasons why the Dark Lord’s triumph was surely at hand. Why did he do that? Why, for the same reason that drove him to each of his other excuses in turn: to prove to himself that his decision to refuse the quest hadn’t been the terrible mistake he knew perfectly well it had been.
Just read an excellent book edited by David Cromwell and Mark Levene “Surviving Climate Change” published by Pluto Press. This is the most comprehensive, honest and pragmatic collection of articles that I have read. The writers do not waste time trying to prove the obvious but get straight on to solutions, political and legal blockages to change, consequences.
Refugee flows are going to be one of the major issues as populations flee drought, competition for water and food, and wars. You can see John Key starting to get NZers used to the rhetoric of exclusion and prejudice in his reactions to refugees and boat people. He has possibly been briefed by American sources eg Schwarz and Randall report for the Pentagon.
The awful truth appears to be that American preparations for climate change are predominantly involved with preparing for control, exclusion and discipline of refugee populations through new “non lethal” weaponry. Steve Wright.s chapter on refugee flows and the Pentagon response is worse than the most outrageous conspiracy theories and science fiction.
Fortunately the rest of the book is less terrifying and deals with how to effect change. Seems we need to move off endlessly going over the same tired arguments. Is it isn’t it etc.
Corporate laws that insist on ever increasing profits are one of the major problems and this needs a political solution. Worth asking MPs at political Forums what their policy is on MIA treaty and TPPA, as these bind sovereign states into considering the profit motive above all other factors.
They also recommend local solutions and collective action as effective and psychologically healthy responses. New Zealand has many advantages as we are small and nimble and have the remnants of democracy which can be revived post election. This really is the do or die Election. We just have to change the Govt. to get started on positive action. We can be a positive model for the planet to follow.
the whole raison d’etre of the media is to sell stuff to the masses with the false consciousness that posessing goods is the only road to happiness.
They are like the Spartans who wouldnt change their minds about their political system even as it crumbled around around them and could have been saved with the correct mental adjustments.
The media have only one goal and that is to exhaust the wealth of the world now before industrialism collpases.
Oh finally incontrovertible proof climate change is a hoax – the official denial from Murdoch
In an interview on Sky News on Sunday, Mr Murdoch spoke candidly about climate change, Australia’s political environment and its relationship with China. He said climate change should be treated with ”much scepticism”.
If the temperature rises 3C in 100 years, ”at the very most one of those [degrees] would be man-made,” he said. ”If the sea level rises six inches, that’s a big deal in the world, the Maldives might disappear or something, but OK, we can’t mitigate that, we can’t stop it, we have to stop building vast houses on seashores.
”We can be the low-cost energy country in the world. We shouldn’t be building windmills and all that rubbish,” he said.
Actually, no, John Oliver’s critique is not “devastating”, because it is based on an obvious untruth. In setting up his mock debate, Mr. Oliver tries to represent that skeptics are a group of people who “deny” that ANY warming is occurring.
But he is not alone. For several years, many on the left have been trying to shut up the climate skeptics both by grossly misrepresenting their viewpoint AND by completely misrepresenting the results of consensus surveys as meaning (falsely) that 97% of climate scientists believe that man-made global warming will have CATASTROPHIC results, which then justify the urgency for the world’s industrial powers to make significant changes to their energy policies.
As for that 97% so-called consensus, this could also be critiqued based on both the logical fallacy of making scientific conclusions by consensus AND the fact anyone who looks into the details would see how it was based a clearly faulty premise which discarded most of the over 11,000 research papers for expressing no opinion, eliminated others based on the pollsters own subjective criteria, and based on their own limited, and dare I say, manipulated remaining sample (less than 100), drew conclusions based on opinions expressed only in those papers, and then reported the results as a percentage of that very small sample. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistical analysis should see the problem with this.
But putting that all aside, the authors of the consensus STILL did not specify the degree to which the warming was human caused (just some, nearly all, or somewhere in between), or whether the “97% thought the consequences of this warming would be mild, dire or could not yet be determined. Regardless of these glaring faults and omissions, advocates of the catastrophic view irresponsibly used this consensus as yet another weapon in their war on any opposing viewpoints.
Likewise, for years those holding the catastrophic view have falsely been portraying “deniers” as a group of people who deny the obvious – that the world has been warming since 1950, that CO2 in the air has been increasing, that the increased CO2 is at least part of the cause of this warming, and therefore that some of the warming we have experienced during that period is caused by human activities.
Naturally, the reason for both of these gross misrepresentations – regarding the viewpoints of skeptics and regarding the consensus survey results – is that the left wants to be able to claim that the “debate is over” and that the “science is settled”, so they can have American and other industrial powers move on to the next step of implementing dramatic changes to their energy policy.
However, the logical and practical next step is not to hastily move on to making major changes in energy policy, but rather to conduct a cost-benefit analysis that considers both the consequences of not making energy policy changes, along with what negative things might result from making those changes. And there is a good reason why the left wants to skip over this important step, because they know full well that limiting the use of fossil fuels, particularly in developing countries, would have serious, costly, and in many cases, fatal consequences for many people across the globe, and that once those facts come out, support for their agenda will wither away.
So no, this “optimistic” viewpoint is not something new. The acceptance of the basic premise of warming and human contributions has been there for many years, and I would be happy to provide multiple links to show that this is the case. However, those favoring the “catastrophic” (or, as it were, “pessimistic”) viewpoint have been constantly distorting this for years, as they would much prefer to engage in a one-sided demagogue than in a debate that they know they would lose.
And ironically, the only way industrial powers would ever be convinced to make the dramatic and global changes needed to have any serious effect on atmospheric CO2 and on climate would be if we actually have the debate I suggest and if, to my surprise, those holding the catastrophic view can put forth convincing data which shows that they are correct, and that therefore the costs and associated risks of making these sweeping energy policy changes is justified. So the irony is that the very debate that is needed in order to realistically bring about these changes is being suppressed by the side that believes that the changes or urgently needed.
As for that 97% so-called consensus, this could also be critiqued based on both the logical fallacy of making scientific conclusions by consensus AND the fact anyone who looks into the details would see…
Ok so you are simply lying. Lets be charitable and say that is simply because you are too ignorant to know how people doing science think. They are the “skeptics”. To be quite frank the “deniers” that I meet in discussion boards would have to be regarded as being simple minded amateurs compared to working scientists. They are trained to disbelieve their own ideas and test the multiple alternative hypothesis for validity. Because if they don’t then some other science prick will make a name out of disproving their ideas.
In 1978-1981 when I went to university to do a Earth Sciences degree we were aware as students of the anthropomorphic climate change theory. In terms of the physics, it was clearly correct that increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would cause greenhouse effects. It was easy to show that in the lab. It was also clear then from isotopic analysis that the most of the decade on decade culmative changes in additional CO2 in the atmosphere were from fossil carbon fuels, again easy to show in the lab.
My geochemistry texts had sections on the analysis based on papers going back to the 1950s, just as they did on meteorites and everything else. That was the “consensus” then. It is something that is obvious to anyone who spent time understanding the basic science. Something you clearly have put no effort into attempting to do.
About the only thing that wasn’t understood was why we weren’t seeing the expected effects as fast as the “pure” physics suggested should happen. But of course they weren’t manifesting themselves on a daisyworld. A real world with lots of volatiles around isn’t even remotely as simple. Almost all of the work done since then to establish the more recent “consensus” you’re referring to happened a lot later.
That became obvious over the following decade as they extended the temperature measurements outside of the dust polluted skies of Europe and the US via ground stations and satellite IR. Then the oceans chemistry, temperatures, volumes, and speed of movement had to be at least partially established. Ice melt were factored in. Every thing had to be measured ever more precisely, widely, and continuously. It has been quite apparent since the early to mid-90’s to anyone with any significiant knowledge of earth sciences what the broad outlines were. Humans were causing climate change well above and directly opposite the underlying trends. Everything else after that was merely refining the models with updated observational data and getting better at predicting the interfaces between climate and decadal weather.
These days, I don’t know of a reputable working scientist (ie one with their beliefs not paid for by oil, gas and coal (usually by the Heartland Foundation)) in the earth sciences areas who doesn’t think that the effects are likely to be catastrophic for our type of civilisation over the next few centuries. The only real questions are how fast it is likely to arrive at the point of causing serious damage, how much adaption time there will be, and how long it will take to adapt. Those are the risks requiring assessment. I notice that you don’t address any of them preferring instead (like so many of the other whining deniers that I see here) to avoid looking squarely at the issues you purport to raise.
However, the logical and practical next step is not to hastily move on to making major changes in energy policy, but rather to conduct a cost-benefit analysis…
Waste more time? Oh yay! Another munter from oil, coal and gas wanting to waste more time so they can realize their reserves. That analysis of your conduct seems like a good working hypothesis to me, bearing in mind the number of these kinds of arseholes I have seen over the years. To prove you are not, then I have a question for you at the end…
But we already know the basic conservative and almost certain risk levels of climate change over the next century. Those are the ones that the IPCC puts out. Book one gives the most conservative estimates of climate change by a combined voice of a lot of knowledgeable scientists working in the areas around climate change. That is the current conservative consensus. They only take high probability and proven results to put into the models to give the range of outcomes shown.
Of course the sequential reports keep getting worse as evidence is found of reinforcements the tilt to climate shifts, evidence of the buffering of oceans and ice sheets reaching its limits, and the very limited countervailing effects of things like additional cloud cover. AR5 showed a much higher risk than AR4 as more information entered the high probability range and gets incorporated.
And the reports for AR6 is going to be a lot worse because now there is some solid evidence this year about the WAIS instability has been long speculated on, but never had a high enough probability to get into the IPCC models.
And ironically, the only way industrial powers would ever be convinced to make the dramatic and global changes needed to have any serious effect on atmospheric CO2 and on climate would be if we actually have the debate I suggest and if, to my surprise, those holding the catastrophic view can put forth convincing data which shows that they are correct…
But the only way to get the type of “convincing” of proof that you seem to be demanding is to let it happen and then examine the consequences in the aftermath. Of course this could result in some megadeaths and I’m sure that the surviving people of Bangladesh, Holland, Florida, Louisiana, South East England, and many other places won’t want you strung up by your balls if you just happen to be wrong about how fast water will rise – yeah right!.
The issue really is risk management where there is incomplete data. This isn’t a completely untapped area of analysis. Insurance companies, stockmarket traders, and politicians do it all of the time. So do scientists. For that matter, even people in households looking at how much they have to hold in liquid savings for emergencies do it – they assess their risks with distinctly imperfect information.
This is no different to trying to analyze the effect of putting cobalt casings on to H-Bombs (in what I perceive is your scenario we should have dropped the damn things to see if the “On The Beach” scenario was feasible), continually adding more fluorocarbons to the atmosphere (we should have seen if we really could fry peoples eyes by removing more ozone), persisting in dropping heavy metals into rivers and harbours in industrial quantities (those lovely cancer and miscarriage clusters not withstanding), or even looking at social policies (free education won’t increase literacy because the peasants are too stupid to read), etc etc. All of the conservative myths of the past that said because something hadn’t happened before in the lifetime of the bozo saying it, that it couldn’t happen and ignoring known risk levels.
If you can suggest a experiment that emulates the whole world, then even then it isn’t “proof”, and in any case a dipshit like yourself won’t accept it as being “valid”. There are no frigging certainties in science except if you carefully measure them throughout the actual object undergoing whatever effect you are testing for. Even then it is subject to questions about retroactive instrumentation and observational effects and a need to repeat the experiment several times.
Unfortunately we actually live on this world, and many of us don’t like the experiment going on now. Quite simply we already have a conservative assessed risk that is making insurance companies routinely building changed weather patterns into their policies.
To me, you sound like a complete paid for fuckwit without an ability to think. But hey, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Lets run an experiment on you to see what type of “denier” you are. Following your argument, lets look at what would allow you to be satisfied about the various parts of the probability risk matrix (I did an MBA as well). A typical denier will do almost anything else apart from trying to define what it would take to convince them that their belief is in fact incorrect.
I’ve tried asking them to provide links to papers, and then never heard back from them after I use their own links to show that they hadn’t read the farking things or they hadn’t looked for critiques (in other words they’d pulled them off some denier site without reading them themselves).
The best way I’ve found of elucidating what type of person I’m dealing with is to ask them to define their own parameters of skepticism.
SO
Tell me explicitly what you would regard as “convincing data” and then tell me how long that data would take to collect. OR
Tell me explicitly what you would regard as data required to disprove anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change and then tell me how long that data would take to collect. OR
Tell me (from the other side) what the certainty is of developing the mitigation and adaption technologies in time to deal with the worst case IPCC AR5 case. Because in the event that you are the fool and are quite wrong, the the other side of the risk equation will be to make sure that the technology required is available.
My bet is that
1. You cannot do any of the above because you have about as much scientific knowledge in this area as the hamster that your accounting prose above indicates. So your response will be on the effective order of “let god decide” and other such chiliastic nonsense. Quite simply you probably wouldn’t be prepared to take the time and study that answering that question will require. In which case you have a lot in common with the leaders of the “industrial powers”. Like them you rely instead on believing in people and/or gods. Rather than believing in the people who actually study the subject I suspect you believe in the dumb munters who make you or your investments feel safe rather than facing reality.
2. That your assessment in the first two will effectively say to wait for another 20-30 years without any changes based on probable risks and let the carbon mining continue in the meantime, while we find out for “certain”. In the latter one you will ignore the history of technology development and assume that an engineered and distributable solution can be reached and testing within a few years despite all of the evidence of the last 50 years of large scale developments that it cannot.
3. Meanwhile you will oppose taking any precautions against the known risks of developing new technologies (look at the history of nuclear fusion) or abating the severity of the risks of climatic shifts by abating greenhouse gas pollution. In other words oppose any gradualistic approach to abate possible risks.
4. Now queue the usual disappearance or the whining about how I am so mean to dumb hamsters and keep calling them names.
I have seen so many of these dumb arse whiners and time wasting shills sprouting the latest spin from the Heartland Foundation and its oil and coal funded clones that I’m getting more than a wee bit sick and tired of them.
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
In 2015 the world agreed to the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Each country would offer a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) "that it intends to achieve", and "pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving [it]". And every five years, they'd improve on it, ratcheting up ambition until ...
In theory, the emissions trading scheme should reduce emissions. Making polluters pay for permits to pollute lets them save money by reducing pollution, giving them a financial incentive to do the right thing. But right from the start the ETS was broken with a system of free allocation, so polluters ...
Irish voters went to the polls on Saturday in parliamentary elections, and perhaps delivered a political revolution. Since independence, Irish politics has been dominated by two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Basicly patronage networks with indistinguishable policies, their cleavage isn't ideology, but who killed whose father or grandfather in ...
Once again the Aotearoa Bike Challenge is on us, and once again I’m participating. In principle this is not hard because it does not represent a significant switch in behavior for me. I already bike nearly every day. The Bicycle The fascinating thing about cycling is the realisation that this ...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago, Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in ...
Under Attack: By sacking not only RNZ Concert’s presenters, but also its producers and librarians, and reducing the station to an automated purveyor of classical music in-between parliamentary broadcasts, RNZ’s CEO, Paul Thompson, wasn’t simply announcing an operational shake-up, he was declaring war on one of the most important guardians of ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets recordsThe recent wildfires in Australia sent one of ...
The Global Protest to #FightInequality was powerful – thankyou and what next? Dear allies, We started the decade with a huge protest to #FightInequality that was heard around the world, including the 1% at Davos. Watch and share the highlights on facebook and twitter. A huge thank you. Together we ...
The Ministry of Health have announced a package that might ensure NZ will never experience another measles epidemic. While at the time of writing the details are still limited it appears that the important limitations in our current programme have been acknowledged and the intent is to address them. Great ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly summarise our assessment of the highly uncertain new coronavirus threat. Given its potential to become a severe and prolonged global pandemic, a precautionary response now means activating all components of our pandemic plan, with a particular focus on ‘keep ...
When Labour was running for election, Jacinda Ardern famously said that climate change was "my generation's nuclear free moment". The implication was that her government would take the problem seriously, and act swiftly to reduce emissions. The reality:New Zealand will emit a million more tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020 ...
James Renwick is Professor of Physical Geography at Victoria University of Wellington. He studied at Canterbury and the University of Washington and has worked on diverse aspects of climate science, including global atmospheric circulation and Antarctic sea ice. In December 2019 he was appointed to the New Zealand Climate Change ...
by Philip Ferguson Exit polls are showing a three-way virtual tie between the main parties in the south of Ireland. Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are all on just over 22%. FG on 22.4, SF on 22.3, FF on 22.2. Exit polls indicate that over 30% of 18-24 ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 2, 2020 through Sat, Feb 8, 2020 Editor's Pick New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses"Even in the face of the ...
In a previous post I described briefly when and how the Starlink satellite chains – recent launches by Space-X in a scheme to bring 5G internet connectivity to the whole globe – could be seen from New Zealand with the naked eye. Here I provide an update and predictions for ...
Keeping The Faith: This Government’s broad, new, heavily moderated, progressive faith does not require a prime minister with the powers of a medieval pope. Jacinda’s regime has no need of subterranean torture chambers to ensure compliance. A gift for diplomacy and the ability to inspire her fellow human-beings is all ...
Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has penned a column which chastises the left wing of the Labour party for daring to retain principles and ideals, qualities - it seems - that should be jettisoned in pursuit of power.Never mind that Freedland was an ardent Remainer, that is to say, one ...
Tonight’s news suggests the coronavirus outbreak may have originated from pangolins. Details are very sketchy, almost nothing at all beyond a claim of high similarity. My impression is this claim comes from a press release by South China Agricultural University. Initial discussion online suggests this is a more likely candidate ...
by Susanne Kemp The Fire and Emergency service (FENZ) has recently asked firefighters in Auckland Areas 3, 4 and 5 to take on an additional duty that has rather ominous implications. Namely, to collect names and addresses of everyone on the premises of fires they attend. The firefighters’ union, the ...
Part of the story of the Nazis' rise to power in Germany was the willingness of mainstream right-wing parties to work with them to keep out the left. Because of this, one of the fundamental rules of postwar German politics has been "do not work with Nazis". As a result, ...
There has long been a truism in public broadcasting: don't mess with Concert FM. The theory was that although the station has been in a long-term audience decline, and that audience is steadily ageing out, it has powerful establishment support – and any threat to it would provoke a fury.As ...
This is a re-post from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The heat absorbed in Earth’s oceans reached a new record in 2019, found a recent study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. Despite the fact that this has been the case for almost every year over the past decade, this information ...
We are confronted with the spectre of Simon Bridges making clear he cannot, will not, trust Winston Peters – the oft-cited “King Maker” in New Zealand politics.Supporters are lauding it as a master stroke, naturally, because in their eyes, it prevents him being the tail that wags the dog. ...
by Don Franks Under a government claiming empathy with the fine arts, Radio New Zealand ( RNZ) is poised to cut back its classical music station, RNZ Concert. The plan is replacing it on FM radio with music “for a younger audience” as part of a new multimedia music brand. ...
More Thwaites This past week we heard disturbing news about Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. Helping to fill in the longer term history of Thwaites' behavior and especially helpful in interpreting results of the recent drilling project and what it may say about the future of this unstable mass of ice is Revealing the ...
Inaccuracies are very common in scientific paper abstracts. Image credit:Science in the Abstract: Don’t Judge a Study by its Cover I have come to accept anti-fluoride campaigners will never stop cherry-picking research and findings ...
“The scene is set, the players met…”. And what players they are in this farce of an Election coming up in the United States this year. There is a multi-faceted anger in the broader situation the world finds itself in, in which the false promises of so-called “moderates” find themselves ...
A few years ago, a company lowballed a contract to dispose of toxic waste from the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. So, they dumped it in a disused paper mill in Mataura, then went into liquidation - effectively dumping the problem on local councils. The waste is dangerous - it releases ...
Unhappy with the demonisation of Iran in Western media, I was fortunate to have the Australian Institute of International Affairs invite me to write an alternative analysis for their on-line journal Australian Outlook. I did, and they serialised it into two parts. The essays are short, so I did not ...
Over on The Good Society, Max Rashbrooke suggests that its time to start directly taxing wealth:A wealth tax would be levied on net wealth – that is, the value of people’s assets once their debts have been subtracted. Such a tax would be highly redistributive. Levied at 1% on wealth ...
The quarterly labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has dropped to 4%. There are now 111,000 unemployed - 15,000 fewer than when Labour took office. Its not the performance we had under Clark (when unemployment was ~3.3%), but its still a reasonable improvement over prevailing conditions under National. ...
Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick Wilson, Louise Delany, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanThe current national measles epidemic in New Zealand is amongst the largest we have experienced in the last 40 years. It can be linked to the problems created by long-term erosion and fragmentation of national public health ...
I’m about to start teaching science communication to tertiary students, which is equally hilarious and terrifying to me. (Hi to my students who have Googled me and found this post.) I loved English at high school, but we spent most of our time reading The Outsiders, discussing the differences between metaphors and ...
Space-X has started launching its Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit with a plan to use some tens of thousands of these to deliver 5G wifi to the whole globe. Chains of these satellites can be seen in the evening or before-dawn skies, through the sunlight they scatter. Here I provide ...
New Zealand was the first country to decriminalise prostitution and it was promoted as a progressive move. Yet survivors of the sex trade say that pimps and johns are emboldened operating within the law, and that the women are treated more like a piece of property to be used and ...
An obscene 12 percent pay jump for already overpaid CEOs last year reveals a willful ignorance from much of corporate New Zealand to the on-going harm inequality is causing the very society they live in, said Peter Malcolm, spokesperson for the income equality project Closing the Gap. In its annual ...
One thing I remember about the interview I did with Rex Halliday for Planet magazine in 1992 was a couple of times being on the verge of tears.Rex was reflecting on the community effort that went into the second Hero party at the old Princes Wharf building – and the ...
Something you don't see: Malawi's constitutional court has annulled fraudulent elections and ordered new ones:Judges in Malawi have annulled last year’s elections and called for a new ballot within 150 days. In a landmark judgment that experts hailed as a step forward for democracy, the country’s constitutional court found that ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First spokesperson for Labour and Industrial Relations Unemployment and wage growth numbers released by Stats NZ today demonstrate a labour market in good shape with unemployment falling to 4.0%, the underutilisation rate falling to an 11 year low, and wage growth at a 10-year high ...
Hon. Ron Mark, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence Ron Mark, welcomes the official opening of Te Rau Aroha, a new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of our Coalition Agreement. “It is a great honour to be part of an effective Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterGood morning,Let us start with important acknowledgements.First, this special day, in remembrance of the 28th Maori Battalion, is also to honour all those men and women who have risked their lives in the service of our country.Second, special guest Robert ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand will look to build on its relationship with the United Kingdom and recommit to the European Union, after the country officially left the continental union recently. The Minister said New Zealand already cooperates closely with Britain on defence and security issues and has ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
All parents and caregivers need to ensure that their children go to school unless they are sick, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin said today. “The school attendance results for 2019 show, across the board, a drop in the number of students going to school regularly,” the Minister says. “Apart from ...
A Deed of Settlement agreeing redress for historical Treaty claims has been signed by the Crown and Moriori at Kōpinga Marae on Rēkohu (Chatham Islands) today, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Moriori have a tradition of peace that extends back over 600 years. This settlement ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today with Māori King Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII officially opened the country’s newest road, the $384 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. The 15km four-lane highway with side and central safety barriers takes State Highway 1 east of Huntly town, across lowlands and streams ...
The rapid uptake of life-saving new hepatitis C medicine Maviret since it was funded by PHARMAC a year ago means the elimination of the deadly disease from this country is a realistic goal, Health Minister David Clark says. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus which attacks the liver, proving fatal ...
Kaupapa Māori will underpin the Government’s new plan to deal with homelessness announced by the Prime Minister in Auckland this morning. “Māori are massively overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, so, to achieve different outcomes for Māori, we have to do things very differently,” says the Minister of Māori Development ...
1000 new transitional housing places delivered by end of year to reduce demand for emergency motel accommodation. Introduce 25% of income payment, after 7 days, for those in emergency motel accommodation to bring in line with other forms of accommodation support. Over $70m extra to programmes that prevents those at ...
Clear requirements for ensuring customers are treated fairly by banks, insurers and other financial service providers are included in new financial conduct legislation that passed its first reading today. “The recent reviews, by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Reserve Bank of New Zealand, into the conduct of banks and ...
Applications are now open for the fifth round of the Regional Culture and Heritage Fund Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Grant Robertson announced today. “I am delighted to open this year’s fund which has some $7 million available to support performing arts venues, galleries, museums and whare ...
The Minister of Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta today congratulated Associate Professor Amokura Kawharu on her appointment as the next President of the Law Commission. “Amokura Kawharu will be a standout in her new role, leading in an innovative and forward looking approach to the law reform process. She will ...
Auckland University legal academic Amokura Kawharu has been appointed as the next President of the Law Commission, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Associate Professor Kawharu will take up her new appointment on 11 May 2020. “I would like to congratulate Associate Professor Kawharu on her appointment,” Andrew ...
A programme for employers to help them engage effectively with younger employees was launched today by Minister of Employment, Willie Jackson. The Youth Ready Employer Programme contains a range of on-line templates that employers can easily access to help with employing and retaining young people in their businesses. The programme ...
Budget 2020 will be delivered on Thursday 14 May, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “This year’s Budget will continue the Coalition Government’s focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also preparing the economy for the future. “Those challenges and opportunities cannot be resolved in one budget, ...
I move, That this House place on record its appreciation and thanks for the devoted and distinguished service to New Zealand by the late Rt Hon Michael Kenneth Moore, member of the Order of New Zealand, a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, an Honorary Member of the ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has today classified the drought conditions in Northland as an adverse event for the primary sector, unlocking $80,000 in Government support. “This is recognition that the extreme and prolonged nature of this dry spell is taking its toll on our farmers and growers and additional support ...
The Minister of Police says an operation to smash a trans national drug smuggling ring today will make a significant impact on the methamphetamine trade fuelling harm in our communities. Police have announced 10 arrests and the seizure of up to five million dollars’ worth of illicit drugs after an ...
The Government’s books are in a strong position to withstand global headwinds, with the accounts in surplus and expenses close to forecast, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown accounts for the six months to December. The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was above ...
Race courses can improve safety with this year’s second round of funding from the Racing Safety Development Fund. Minister for Racing Winston Peters has announced the second funding round of 2019/20 is open with $347,875 available for distribution. “The racing industry is integral to the economic and social fabric of ...
The Government is committing $300,000 to fund research to update behavioural information to make sure HIV and STI prevention services are targeted appropriately in New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson made the announcement at today’s Big Gay Out in Auckland. “There is much talk about ...
The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media has announced work will begin on a business case to assess the viability of forming a new public media entity. “The Government must ensure New Zealanders have a strong independent public media service for decades to come, which means ensuring public ...
Minister of Civil Defence Hon Peeni Henare announced today that the Government will contribute $100,000 to the Southland regional Mayoral Relief Fund, to support communities impacted by the recent flooding in Southland. Mr Henare says this week’s flooding has caused significant disruption to communities in the lower South Island. ...
Heritage buildings throughout New Zealand will benefit from the $1.1 million in Heritage EQUIP funding grants announced today. “These grants for seismic strengthening projects help private building owners get the advice they need to start building work or to get the work completed,” Grant Robertson says. “Timaru’s Grosvenor Hotel has ...
A new survey has found New Zealand’s game development sector has grown beyond expectations and is on track to becoming a billion dollar industry in 2025, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford says. “New Zealand’s interactive media sector grew by 42 per cent in last financial year to $203.4 million, according ...
Te Tii, the lower marae at Waitangi, is among more than 70 marae now connected to broadband internet thanks to the Provincial Growth Fund’s marae connectivity scheme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said today. In February 2019, the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) allocated $21 million to connect rural towns ...
The West Coast has had a funding injection of over $1.2 million from the Provincial Growth Fund, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika today. The PGF projects announced are: $800,000 to Development West Coast for a Grey District Regional Digital Hub ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has declared an adverse event for the Southland and Otago regions, unlocking Government support for farmers and growers. “Widespread flooding has resulted in severe disruption, with many people evacuated from their homes and many farms being affected by flood waters. It’s putting pressure on our farmers, ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a funeral service for former Labour Prime Minister the Rt Hon Mike Moore, ONZ, AO. A public service will be held on Friday 14 February at 2pm at Dilworth School senior campus, 2 Erin Street, Epsom, Auckland. “The service will be a celebration of ...
Electricity retailers will no longer be able to entice former customers with steep and exclusive discounts, the Electricity Authority has announced. ...
The National Party leader Simon Bridges says it came as a surprise to him that the Serious Fraud Office prosecution relates to two $100,000 donations to the party. ...
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The $11 million tourism package announced after today’s Cabinet is a positive response. Auckland Business Chamber head Michael Barnett said possibly more important in the Prime Minister’s announcement was that further support was possible, as ...
By Joenner Paulo L. Enriquez and Ma. Alena O. Castillo in Manila Thomasian Jesuit priests Fr Albert Alejo and Fr Flaviano Villanueva have posted P10,000 (NZ$310) bail each after a judge issued a warrant of arrest in connection with their sedition case. “Nag-piyansa na kami Fr Flavie at sumama ...
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@ 01:25 minutes: “The debate about climate change should not be about whether or not it exists but what we should do about it.”
What we should not be doing, is developing unconventional oil technologies like deep sea oil drilling, or fracking, nor should we be opening up any more new coal mines.
This just makes a mockery of political parties that make aspirational statements about New Zealand being carbon neutral in 2030 or 2050 or what ever stupid distant date they care to name that lets them avoid taking action in the here and now.
Bottom line
No Deep Sea Oil Drilling
No New Coal Mines at Mangatangi, or Denniston.
Wind down the rest, starting now.
Anything less is blatant and hypocrisy.
Cancel the government subsidies to the polluters and switch them to renewables industry.
I don’t disagree with you Jenny but civilisation needs to rid itself of its addiction to petroleum but not crashing and burning at the same time. So we need to have a crash carbon diet. The politics of getting there are cursed.
Unfortunately I suspect our options now are:
1) A controlled ditching, on our terms with everyone well braced for impact OR
2) A flameout and nosedive from 35,000 feet with champagne still served in first class all the way down.
Let me think what our power elite are going to pick.
Greg when you say the politics are cursed, What do you mean?
Do you mean that the fossil fuel lobby is too powerful for democratic government to oppose?
Fighting climate change is not a technical matter it is a matter of political will, do we not have the political leaders with the needed courage and intelligence and the determination to advocate for even the most minimalist program?
Look this is not extreme. Deep sea oil drilling is something that we never had before and wouldn’t miss. And No New Coal Mines is an extremely minimalist policy. Hardly crashing and burning. If we are committed to starting new coal mines now. We will still be mining coal way into the future for the foreseeable lifetime of these mines, way past the time when we should beginning to grandfather the already existing mines.
It is the prevarication and commitment to Business As Usual position which is the extreme position and will which will result in crash and burn.
We need concrete action in the here and now. But it is not happening. Why not?
Are we waiting for a super storm like Sandy or Haiyan to crash on our shores?
I mean politics will limit how far society goes with measures to address climate change. If a party goes too hard they will lose, if they do not go hard enough then irreparable damage will occur. I am hoping that the democratic system is able to deliver leadership that will be able to stop irreparable damage. Time will tell …
Only grass roots pressure from widespread popular movements and civil society organisations have any hope of pushing Parliament to do the right thing. Any isolated leader, no matter how talented, willing or well intentioned, without these popular movements backing them up will find resistance to change from establishment players pretty much unsurmountable.
This is exactly true CV but it is a balancing act. Popular protest alone won’t do it. Neither will government ministers in isolation acting alone can do anything. There has to be a melding of the two. Leadership from above is just as important as pressure from below. The model I refer to is the one that made New Zealand Nuclear Weapons Free.
If you remember it was the Labour Party in opposition in league with the huge protest movement that brought the legislation to the floor of parliament. This is the model we need to emulate.
It is one of the main reasons that I call for the Greens to stand out from cabinet, so that they are able to champion and speak for the gains of any popular movement in parliament. Bound by collective cabinet responsibility they will be stifled from giving a voice to such a movement.
A democratic system probably would – pity we don’t have one.
Actually, it’s a rather stupid policy. Coal is a useful resource when it’s not burned to produce electricity.
A better policy would be: No coal mined in NZ will be burned to produce electricity. And yes, that means not selling it to other countries because we can’t guarantee that it won’t be burned.
All indications are that our politicians are owned by the rich and quite possibly the rich in other countries.
I actually don’t believe that. But politics is a strange thing, it is all about pressure, it takes a very remarkable individual to go against the main flow of opinion, very few have ever managed it, even with a support group around them. Who is giving the lead and applying the pressure and who isn’t. At present the fossil fuel lobby are, and they have as yet not properly met up with a counterbalancing force in society, at least not one that reaches into parliament.
Unlike the current situation, the hugely successful antinuclear movement was able to reach into parliament and influence opinion amongst MPs effectively winning over Government Members Mike Minogue and Marilyn Waring, tilting the ballance of power in the house.
We follow much in the steps of the USA and the USA is already a plutocracy.
But the reality is that our politicians aren’t making the changes required by the facts and they’re not making the changes required by the population. So what is driving them to the policies that they do promote and implement if it’s not the two things that they should be making the decisions upon?
And don’t forget the attitudes and recommendations of the civil service bureaucracy and deep state, and how far corporate influences have got in there as well.
Transition towns are at least making a start, and without waiting for permission from the government to do so.
The Blueskin Energy project has resulted from that initiative, and I seem to recall they are intending to open source their project so that it can be duplicated around NZ.
Hi Molly I applaud and support the Transitions Towns initiative where I can. I see them akin to the heroic citizens of the International Brigade that volunteered and went off to confront fascism in Spain. But what we must take from this is that to really defeat international fascism on a global scale there had to be national government and wider society buy in.
I might also add that Transition Towns currently require a contribution of financial and other resources that a large part of the population simply don’t have, no doubt when the crisis hits these efforts will be rapidly scaled up, how successful this will be in protecting the majority of the population is anyone’s guess.
The report is entitled Pathways to ‘Deep Decarbonization’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-09/fix-the-climate-problem-easy-cut-u-s-emissions-to-1901-levels.html
This is where we come in. We are not one of the dozen large national emitters, but we could give them a lead and an example to point to.
The big polluters are all waiting on each other to make the first move.
What New Zealand does in 2015 could make or break these talks. There is still time for the main opposition parties to start campaigning for a blanket ban on Deep Sea Oil drilling and No New Coal Mines, in 2015.
Our new government could then go to these talks as a world leader and openly say that we have taken these iconic positions to show this country’s seriousness in fighting climate change.
This would truly see climate change become an election hot potato. The government would be left floundering, it is their weakest performing portfolio. On the issue of climate change they have no answers, they are in effect the emperor without clothes.
80% of the population are opposed to deep sea oil drilling,
As Gareth Hughes of the Greens has said, “If we really want to beat Deep Sea Oil Drilling we have to fight it on climate change grounds.”
60% want the government to do more on climate change.
This is a large constituency just waiting to be tapped.
From the report:
New Zealand could be that egg from which global action could hatch.
…
nationalNationalgovernmentParty buy in. FIFY.Same goes for child poverty, and every other issue under the sun. The Right is lost in belief and proud of it*. Either that or they’re intent on murder-suicide with the rest of us as the unwilling partners.
We would not be having this debate otherwise.
*I include Margaret Thatcher in this – her science-driven early (for a politician) recognition of the problem was dwarfed by the damage her dogma did.
that is very funny..and john oliver is very very good…
..i have built quite a tidy little john oliver archive..
..should you desire more..
http://whoar.co.nz/?s=john+oliver
..(i had that climate-one back on 13th may..)
if you polled the rightwing-jerks that inhabit most of our media..
..probably most of them are denialists..’the jury’s still out’ kinda people..
..and funny story..!..
..rich republicans overwhelmingly are denialists..
..the ‘rich idiots’..
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/climate-denial-wealth-rich-republicans
The Jackalman had a good post last week – including questioning of National Party Conference attendees regarding climate change.
Pretty much as you would expect, but the arrogance still shines through…
(So good to have him posting again coming up to the election)
Yeah, love those posts of his.
if they admit to climate change then they wont be able to get any more soap or elastic for their underpants.
not to mention the estates in the hamptons and the 10 car garages, international travel adnd esxpensive hotels and personal assistants (slaves).
it means the end of the “system”.
show me any politician will go against the material things of no practical use produced by industrialism and the tawdry dreams manufactured by the dream factories.
sorry folks but humanity is just going to have to ride this one out.
tough titty.
in the meantime the seas will be acidified and species extinction will severely curtail the ability to continue unlimited growth and expansion.
Won’t the Hamptons be under the ocean in a few years? Maybe the effects of global warming will wash out all the neo-liberals.
The media problem is more general than this. When an established fact is at odds with either a significant number of viewers’ opinions or at odds with elite opinion, the media won’t report the fact. They will inevitably slip into reporting what the polls say as a means of avoiding taking a position.
It’s strange: the institutions that we employ to inform us about the facts that we don’t have the time or resources to find out for ourselves end up reporting to us what our uninformed opinion of those facts is. It’s an endless loop of mutually reinforcing derp.
Sometimes they’ll even report a fact as a fact and in the next sentence slip into talking about public opinion as a way of discounting it.
My guess: it’s money.
Look up the “Kochtopus” to see how big money influences what we got told in the media. From funding friendly research, to publishing only the results that are ‘acceptable’, to owning the media channels and spin merchants. It’s a complete system of disinformation.
It’s a complete system of disinformation.
Yes it is. I keep wondering exactly where it’s Achilles Heel is. Nothing is invulnerable.
For how long did we imagine that the Iron Curtain was impregnable – then suddenly it was gone?
The Herald does it on a regular basis. Not sure the Koch’s reach that far.
A complete reform of the media is long overdue. Professional journalism plays an important role in a healthy society – metaphorically they are like the eyes and ears of the body of society.
No wonder we are deaf and blind to what is really going on.
Then i would add that a deep reform of academia to meet the needs of society needs to follow.
The system of global media story syndication, evisceration of counterbalancing local investigative journalism, and funding of right leaning think tanks which pump out a continuous series of credible looking ‘news worthy’ discussion points, is how it is done.
It’s nowhere near perfect of course. Look at how we are able to discuss what we are discussing now. But you will note their many legal and technological attempts to start squeezing down discourse and dissent over the internet.
Tom, are you suggesting the Herald is impervious to the commercial and political will globally focused on maintaining the status quo?
My usual gripe with ‘climate change’ which i will habitually mention here: depletion of affordable fossil fuels within 20 years is the main problem. It is going to lead to a chaotic and rapid decarbonisation of the global economy as well as a very limited ability to deal with the longer term effects of the climate change which is already inevitable.
We have this short time period within which to get NZs social, economic and infrastructure systems in place. If we do not use this remaining window of opportunity wisely, we will be making life for future generations of Kiwis much harder than it needs to be.
Will climate change become an election issue?
In 2012,
Despite Hurricane Sandy blowing right through their campaign and throwing their schedules into disarray, both Obama and Romney remained steadfast in giving the climate as little air time as possible.
And for the first time since 1984 climate change wasn’t mentioned in any of the presidential debates.
“End Climate Silence”
The studied silence around climate change in the US presidential election race, in 2012 mirrored the same studied silence on the climate change that was observed by all parties in the New Zealand elections the previous year.
And sadly in David Cunliffe’s recent inaugural 2014 election speech given at the Labour Party congress last week.
In the wake of the severe flooding and storms in the North that look to become a regular seasonal event.
Just like Obama and Romney in 2012, after Sandy, if he continues this studied silence David Cunliffe risks becoming isolated and embarrassed in his silence over climate change.
My hope is that in deliberately leaving any mention of climate change from his inaugural election speech, that David Cunliffe intends to give this subject the proper attention it deserves and has prepared a dedicated address on climate change that will set out what concrete measures the Labour Party intend to implement on coming into government.
(That any policy can make a difference now): This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won’t make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
“It’s just too late for it,” he says. “Perhaps if we’d gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don’t have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can’t say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do.”
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
We’ve already pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere to precipitate catastrophe, talk of policy making a difference is delusional.The MSM keep up the pretence we still have control, the truth would cause mass dismay.
..@johnm..
..+1..
The only difference is that today we don’t anywhere seem to have the necessary gutsy determined political leadership ready to step up to give us that sense of purpose. Leaders who can’t be bought or intimidated or easily fooled. Leaders prepared to go out on a limb to shame the political quislings and cowards and name and denounce the open traitors,
With the self assurance and certainty of purpose to be able to rally the population,
With the sense to listen to the scientific advisors, and with the courage to be able to stand up in the face of the arrogant and powerful plutocrats determined to drive us deeper and further and faster down the road to disaster.
And time is running out
“on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do.”
That to me is the nub of the whole issue especially in our western middle class lives – we will do what we want and that is the way we roll – selfish, ignorant, delusional and greedy – fuck the planet, fuck the developing nations, fuck the poor, fuck the future generations, fuck everyone and everything that isn’t me – guess what human, mother nature doesn’t like that attitude. So for the many that are repelled by the attitudes expressed above – what are YOU doing to prepare, what part of the “immense amount to do” are you getting on with.
JMG posted two excellent essays/stories on exactly this:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/refusing-call-tale-rewritten.html
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/the-time-of-seedbearers.html
A wry re-write of the Tolkein tales.
Yep he is seeing the future trajectory of humanity with clarity imo an essential read is JMG
+1
Exactly.
Your mission should you choose to accept it:
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blockquote>….he started insisting to anyone who would listen that Middle-earth was doomed, that there was no hope left in elves or dying Númenor, that Sauron’s final victory would surely come before—oh, I forget what the date was; it was some year or other not too far from now. He spent hours reading through books of lore, making long lists of reasons why the Dark Lord’s triumph was surely at hand. Why did he do that? Why, for the same reason that drove him to each of his other excuses in turn: to prove to himself that his decision to refuse the quest hadn’t been the terrible mistake he knew perfectly well it had been.
Just read an excellent book edited by David Cromwell and Mark Levene “Surviving Climate Change” published by Pluto Press. This is the most comprehensive, honest and pragmatic collection of articles that I have read. The writers do not waste time trying to prove the obvious but get straight on to solutions, political and legal blockages to change, consequences.
Refugee flows are going to be one of the major issues as populations flee drought, competition for water and food, and wars. You can see John Key starting to get NZers used to the rhetoric of exclusion and prejudice in his reactions to refugees and boat people. He has possibly been briefed by American sources eg Schwarz and Randall report for the Pentagon.
The awful truth appears to be that American preparations for climate change are predominantly involved with preparing for control, exclusion and discipline of refugee populations through new “non lethal” weaponry. Steve Wright.s chapter on refugee flows and the Pentagon response is worse than the most outrageous conspiracy theories and science fiction.
Fortunately the rest of the book is less terrifying and deals with how to effect change. Seems we need to move off endlessly going over the same tired arguments. Is it isn’t it etc.
Corporate laws that insist on ever increasing profits are one of the major problems and this needs a political solution. Worth asking MPs at political Forums what their policy is on MIA treaty and TPPA, as these bind sovereign states into considering the profit motive above all other factors.
They also recommend local solutions and collective action as effective and psychologically healthy responses. New Zealand has many advantages as we are small and nimble and have the remnants of democracy which can be revived post election. This really is the do or die Election. We just have to change the Govt. to get started on positive action. We can be a positive model for the planet to follow.
+1
The rich and powerful don’t want us making decent labour laws either. But we don’t lay down and give up that fight.
+1
the whole raison d’etre of the media is to sell stuff to the masses with the false consciousness that posessing goods is the only road to happiness.
They are like the Spartans who wouldnt change their minds about their political system even as it crumbled around around them and could have been saved with the correct mental adjustments.
The media have only one goal and that is to exhaust the wealth of the world now before industrialism collpases.
Oh finally incontrovertible proof climate change is a hoax – the official denial from Murdoch
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/fight-climate-change-by-building-away-from-sea-rupert-murdoch-20140713-zt66s.html#ixzz37LlwBiw4
Actually, no, John Oliver’s critique is not “devastating”, because it is based on an obvious untruth. In setting up his mock debate, Mr. Oliver tries to represent that skeptics are a group of people who “deny” that ANY warming is occurring.
But he is not alone. For several years, many on the left have been trying to shut up the climate skeptics both by grossly misrepresenting their viewpoint AND by completely misrepresenting the results of consensus surveys as meaning (falsely) that 97% of climate scientists believe that man-made global warming will have CATASTROPHIC results, which then justify the urgency for the world’s industrial powers to make significant changes to their energy policies.
As for that 97% so-called consensus, this could also be critiqued based on both the logical fallacy of making scientific conclusions by consensus AND the fact anyone who looks into the details would see how it was based a clearly faulty premise which discarded most of the over 11,000 research papers for expressing no opinion, eliminated others based on the pollsters own subjective criteria, and based on their own limited, and dare I say, manipulated remaining sample (less than 100), drew conclusions based on opinions expressed only in those papers, and then reported the results as a percentage of that very small sample. Anyone with a basic understanding of statistical analysis should see the problem with this.
But putting that all aside, the authors of the consensus STILL did not specify the degree to which the warming was human caused (just some, nearly all, or somewhere in between), or whether the “97% thought the consequences of this warming would be mild, dire or could not yet be determined. Regardless of these glaring faults and omissions, advocates of the catastrophic view irresponsibly used this consensus as yet another weapon in their war on any opposing viewpoints.
Likewise, for years those holding the catastrophic view have falsely been portraying “deniers” as a group of people who deny the obvious – that the world has been warming since 1950, that CO2 in the air has been increasing, that the increased CO2 is at least part of the cause of this warming, and therefore that some of the warming we have experienced during that period is caused by human activities.
Naturally, the reason for both of these gross misrepresentations – regarding the viewpoints of skeptics and regarding the consensus survey results – is that the left wants to be able to claim that the “debate is over” and that the “science is settled”, so they can have American and other industrial powers move on to the next step of implementing dramatic changes to their energy policy.
However, the logical and practical next step is not to hastily move on to making major changes in energy policy, but rather to conduct a cost-benefit analysis that considers both the consequences of not making energy policy changes, along with what negative things might result from making those changes. And there is a good reason why the left wants to skip over this important step, because they know full well that limiting the use of fossil fuels, particularly in developing countries, would have serious, costly, and in many cases, fatal consequences for many people across the globe, and that once those facts come out, support for their agenda will wither away.
So no, this “optimistic” viewpoint is not something new. The acceptance of the basic premise of warming and human contributions has been there for many years, and I would be happy to provide multiple links to show that this is the case. However, those favoring the “catastrophic” (or, as it were, “pessimistic”) viewpoint have been constantly distorting this for years, as they would much prefer to engage in a one-sided demagogue than in a debate that they know they would lose.
And ironically, the only way industrial powers would ever be convinced to make the dramatic and global changes needed to have any serious effect on atmospheric CO2 and on climate would be if we actually have the debate I suggest and if, to my surprise, those holding the catastrophic view can put forth convincing data which shows that they are correct, and that therefore the costs and associated risks of making these sweeping energy policy changes is justified. So the irony is that the very debate that is needed in order to realistically bring about these changes is being suppressed by the side that believes that the changes or urgently needed.
Ok so you are simply lying. Lets be charitable and say that is simply because you are too ignorant to know how people doing science think. They are the “skeptics”. To be quite frank the “deniers” that I meet in discussion boards would have to be regarded as being simple minded amateurs compared to working scientists. They are trained to disbelieve their own ideas and test the multiple alternative hypothesis for validity. Because if they don’t then some other science prick will make a name out of disproving their ideas.
In 1978-1981 when I went to university to do a Earth Sciences degree we were aware as students of the anthropomorphic climate change theory. In terms of the physics, it was clearly correct that increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would cause greenhouse effects. It was easy to show that in the lab. It was also clear then from isotopic analysis that the most of the decade on decade culmative changes in additional CO2 in the atmosphere were from fossil carbon fuels, again easy to show in the lab.
My geochemistry texts had sections on the analysis based on papers going back to the 1950s, just as they did on meteorites and everything else. That was the “consensus” then. It is something that is obvious to anyone who spent time understanding the basic science. Something you clearly have put no effort into attempting to do.
About the only thing that wasn’t understood was why we weren’t seeing the expected effects as fast as the “pure” physics suggested should happen. But of course they weren’t manifesting themselves on a daisyworld. A real world with lots of volatiles around isn’t even remotely as simple. Almost all of the work done since then to establish the more recent “consensus” you’re referring to happened a lot later.
That became obvious over the following decade as they extended the temperature measurements outside of the dust polluted skies of Europe and the US via ground stations and satellite IR. Then the oceans chemistry, temperatures, volumes, and speed of movement had to be at least partially established. Ice melt were factored in. Every thing had to be measured ever more precisely, widely, and continuously. It has been quite apparent since the early to mid-90’s to anyone with any significiant knowledge of earth sciences what the broad outlines were. Humans were causing climate change well above and directly opposite the underlying trends. Everything else after that was merely refining the models with updated observational data and getting better at predicting the interfaces between climate and decadal weather.
These days, I don’t know of a reputable working scientist (ie one with their beliefs not paid for by oil, gas and coal (usually by the Heartland Foundation)) in the earth sciences areas who doesn’t think that the effects are likely to be catastrophic for our type of civilisation over the next few centuries. The only real questions are how fast it is likely to arrive at the point of causing serious damage, how much adaption time there will be, and how long it will take to adapt. Those are the risks requiring assessment. I notice that you don’t address any of them preferring instead (like so many of the other whining deniers that I see here) to avoid looking squarely at the issues you purport to raise.
Waste more time? Oh yay! Another munter from oil, coal and gas wanting to waste more time so they can realize their reserves. That analysis of your conduct seems like a good working hypothesis to me, bearing in mind the number of these kinds of arseholes I have seen over the years. To prove you are not, then I have a question for you at the end…
But we already know the basic conservative and almost certain risk levels of climate change over the next century. Those are the ones that the IPCC puts out. Book one gives the most conservative estimates of climate change by a combined voice of a lot of knowledgeable scientists working in the areas around climate change. That is the current conservative consensus. They only take high probability and proven results to put into the models to give the range of outcomes shown.
Of course the sequential reports keep getting worse as evidence is found of reinforcements the tilt to climate shifts, evidence of the buffering of oceans and ice sheets reaching its limits, and the very limited countervailing effects of things like additional cloud cover. AR5 showed a much higher risk than AR4 as more information entered the high probability range and gets incorporated.
And the reports for AR6 is going to be a lot worse because now there is some solid evidence this year about the WAIS instability has been long speculated on, but never had a high enough probability to get into the IPCC models.
But the only way to get the type of “convincing” of proof that you seem to be demanding is to let it happen and then examine the consequences in the aftermath. Of course this could result in some megadeaths and I’m sure that the surviving people of Bangladesh, Holland, Florida, Louisiana, South East England, and many other places won’t want you strung up by your balls if you just happen to be wrong about how fast water will rise – yeah right!.
The issue really is risk management where there is incomplete data. This isn’t a completely untapped area of analysis. Insurance companies, stockmarket traders, and politicians do it all of the time. So do scientists. For that matter, even people in households looking at how much they have to hold in liquid savings for emergencies do it – they assess their risks with distinctly imperfect information.
This is no different to trying to analyze the effect of putting cobalt casings on to H-Bombs (in what I perceive is your scenario we should have dropped the damn things to see if the “On The Beach” scenario was feasible), continually adding more fluorocarbons to the atmosphere (we should have seen if we really could fry peoples eyes by removing more ozone), persisting in dropping heavy metals into rivers and harbours in industrial quantities (those lovely cancer and miscarriage clusters not withstanding), or even looking at social policies (free education won’t increase literacy because the peasants are too stupid to read), etc etc. All of the conservative myths of the past that said because something hadn’t happened before in the lifetime of the bozo saying it, that it couldn’t happen and ignoring known risk levels.
If you can suggest a experiment that emulates the whole world, then even then it isn’t “proof”, and in any case a dipshit like yourself won’t accept it as being “valid”. There are no frigging certainties in science except if you carefully measure them throughout the actual object undergoing whatever effect you are testing for. Even then it is subject to questions about retroactive instrumentation and observational effects and a need to repeat the experiment several times.
Unfortunately we actually live on this world, and many of us don’t like the experiment going on now. Quite simply we already have a conservative assessed risk that is making insurance companies routinely building changed weather patterns into their policies.
To me, you sound like a complete paid for fuckwit without an ability to think. But hey, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Lets run an experiment on you to see what type of “denier” you are. Following your argument, lets look at what would allow you to be satisfied about the various parts of the probability risk matrix (I did an MBA as well). A typical denier will do almost anything else apart from trying to define what it would take to convince them that their belief is in fact incorrect.
I’ve tried asking them to provide links to papers, and then never heard back from them after I use their own links to show that they hadn’t read the farking things or they hadn’t looked for critiques (in other words they’d pulled them off some denier site without reading them themselves).
The best way I’ve found of elucidating what type of person I’m dealing with is to ask them to define their own parameters of skepticism.
SO
Tell me explicitly what you would regard as “convincing data” and then tell me how long that data would take to collect.
OR
Tell me explicitly what you would regard as data required to disprove anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change and then tell me how long that data would take to collect.
OR
Tell me (from the other side) what the certainty is of developing the mitigation and adaption technologies in time to deal with the worst case IPCC AR5 case. Because in the event that you are the fool and are quite wrong, the the other side of the risk equation will be to make sure that the technology required is available.
My bet is that
1. You cannot do any of the above because you have about as much scientific knowledge in this area as the hamster that your accounting prose above indicates. So your response will be on the effective order of “let god decide” and other such chiliastic nonsense. Quite simply you probably wouldn’t be prepared to take the time and study that answering that question will require. In which case you have a lot in common with the leaders of the “industrial powers”. Like them you rely instead on believing in people and/or gods. Rather than believing in the people who actually study the subject I suspect you believe in the dumb munters who make you or your investments feel safe rather than facing reality.
2. That your assessment in the first two will effectively say to wait for another 20-30 years without any changes based on probable risks and let the carbon mining continue in the meantime, while we find out for “certain”. In the latter one you will ignore the history of technology development and assume that an engineered and distributable solution can be reached and testing within a few years despite all of the evidence of the last 50 years of large scale developments that it cannot.
3. Meanwhile you will oppose taking any precautions against the known risks of developing new technologies (look at the history of nuclear fusion) or abating the severity of the risks of climatic shifts by abating greenhouse gas pollution. In other words oppose any gradualistic approach to abate possible risks.
4. Now queue the usual disappearance or the whining about how I am so mean to dumb hamsters and keep calling them names.
I have seen so many of these dumb arse whiners and time wasting shills sprouting the latest spin from the Heartland Foundation and its oil and coal funded clones that I’m getting more than a wee bit sick and tired of them.
Yes, the planet got destroyed…