Later climate change deniers

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, October 15th, 2019 - 73 comments
Categories: climate change, elections, Environment, global warming, local body elections, local government, Politics, science - Tags:

The latest election results are notable for the removal of a number of climate change deniers from office, and the election of a number of candidates who stood on explicit climate change platforms.  Charlie Mitchell has the overview:

https://twitter.com/comingupcharlie/status/1183622092043894785
https://twitter.com/comingupcharlie/status/1183622095705526273

One aspect that was pleasing was the election of candidates standing specifically on climate change policies.  Standard contributor Robert Guyton was returned to Environment Southland. 

Another contributor Denis Tegg was elected to the Waitako Regional Council.  He has said this on his blog:

My campaign focused almost entirely on the need for urgent strong action to address the climate crisis.  I am especially pleased that the election result now gives me a solid mandate to pursue climate action for the region and Thames-Coromandel.

There are many other major challenges and opportunities for our region and district, and I relish the chance to tackle them.

My campaign also showed that you don’t have to throw large amounts of money into billboards, paid radio and newspaper advertising, and negative personal attacks to be successful.  Sticking to the issues and using social media is a winning strategy.

And Jack Craw was elected to the Northland District Council.  He is another person who will advocate for real action against climate change.

There were also a number of young people elected to office.  Radio New Zealand has the details:

Sophie Handford, 18, is believed to be the country’s youngest new councillor.

She has been elected to Kāpiti Coast District Council and said political inaction over climate change compelled her to join the race.

“I think as a young person who’s relatively scared for her future, I feel the fear of climate change most days.

“It worries me that most of those in power at the moment aren’t taking the necessary action that we need right now to safeguard my generations right to a future.”

Down the road in the capital, 22-year-old Tamatha Paul is now a Wellington city councillor.

She said it seemed like more and more young people were getting interested in politics.

She credits the recent successes of international movements like the school strikes for climate change, and young local political leaders like the Green Party’s Chlöe Swarbrick for bringing about a sea change …

Fisher Wang, 19, who’s just been elected to Rotorua Lakes Council, also has a focus on on climate change and the environment.

He said he was determined to make a difference and would not let other councillors intimidate him.

“There is a little bit of stigma around my age. And a lot of people think I’ll just say yes to anything or I’m easily manipulated.

“But I don’t really believe that’s the case. We all have values and we will stick to them. Going onto the council I’ll have my stance, my voice, that’s what I’m delivering.”

Of course there are a bunch of people elected who will claim that climate change is real and is an urgent issue but will then water down and hold back the action that responsible leaders should be committing to.  Continued vigilance will be required. And calling them out. The time for measured triangulation is over.

73 comments on “Later climate change deniers ”

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  1. Blazer 1
    15 October 2019 at 1:53 pm

    So what meaningful initiatives to address 'humans warming climate' are these elected candidates introducing?

  2. weka 2
    15 October 2019 at 2:03 pm

    This is more hopeful than I had expected, I think we are probably in the middle of a sea change and fingers crossed that progressives will be well organised for next year.

    Sorry you didn't get a seat micky, good run though. Interesting to see so many candidates. Was that at FPP or STV vote?

    Has Robert been confirmed yet? He said on Sunday that it was close enough as to be unsure of the seat.

  3. tc 3
    15 October 2019 at 2:28 pm

    Wishing them all the very best as most of the mayors are climate denial dinosaurs like WDC's allan sanson who refuses to stop holding closed meetings and is as arrogant as it comes in his 4th term.

    These are the clowns that allow raw sewage into the raglan harbour, admit they can't fix it and keep approving new housing developments connected to it.

  4. Ad 4
    15 October 2019 at 4:09 pm

    Well if 3.5% of the population can march the week before, and we get a little shift at a local level, that's a good reality check for the movement at this point.

  5. BG 5
    15 October 2019 at 7:44 pm

    Doesn't it seem a little ironic that so many of the contributors on this site absolutely have no trust in the media… But the moment MSM push the climate change barrow, they're in complete agreement?

    • mickysavage 5.1
      15 October 2019 at 8:18 pm

      The media is a diverse beast. Charlie Mitchell is one of the best, just as Mike Hosking is one of the worst.

    • greywarshark 5.2
      15 October 2019 at 9:12 pm

      BG That's an odd remark. Very generalised, some media aren't trusted for some things, and some can be trusted to always be skewed. When there is a well written and informative piece it is likely to be praised. We don't just follow local media, so we know what is being reported elsewhere. We know that climate change has often been avoided in the RW media in NZ, and now it is we are thankful to see it at last. To understand what is going on you have to be constantly thinking about the news and information. That is what we do here most of the time. Do you do this yourself?

      • BG 5.2.1
        16 October 2019 at 6:59 am

        Fair point, but I actually have so little trust of the media that I'm very skeptical about any cause it pushes.

        I know I'll be ridiculed but I'm a climate change skeptic. A. I have no trust in the media. B. We've been through all this before, in the 70s the world was facing a ice age remember? C. Who profits?

        I'm all for cleaning up the environment, cleaner energy efficiency etc in fact from the outside I'd appear as a greenie. But the doomsday alarmists and the kind of people pushing the cause ( and completely shutting down debate) and the complete hypocrisy of those same people, has me questioning the motivation behind the whole movement.

        • Andre 5.2.1.1
          16 October 2019 at 8:22 am

          To address your ABC:

          A: yeah there is indeed a lot of crap in the media. So when it comes to science reporting, it really is best to treat mainstream media articles as a flag that there might be something interesting being published in specialist expertise media. And in the specialist expertise media media about climate change, the actual experts are unequivocal about the reality that climate change is happening now and human activity is causing it. One of the best sites I've found written by actual experts looking at the common questions is https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

          B: yes, I remember the ice age thing in the 70s. That goes back to the point in A about mainstream media just being a flag to interesting topics being currently explored in specialist media. Talking about the ice age thing specifically, that came about because that was when the climate effects of the earth's orbital variations (Milankovitch cycles) were first starting to be understood. Our current position in the Milankovitch cycles means we should be experiencing a very slow steady cooling leading to another ice age starting in a few thousand years, in the absence of other forcing factors. This was what caught the popular media's attention. However, at the time, the specialist expertise media was still quite clear, the heating effects caused by all the greenhouse gases humans were dumping into the atmosphere was expected to be much stronger than the cooling effects of the Milankovitch cycle. Some of the few actual climate scientists of the time that were predicting cooling were basing that on the expectation of ever-increasing atmospheric aerosols (otherwise known as particulate pollution), but that hasn't turned out to actually happen.

          C: Who profits? We know for damn sure fossil fuel companies profit from selling their products for as long as they possibly can. So it's in their clear interest to manufacture as much doubt and delay as possible. Do climate scientists profit? Unlikely. Even if emissions were expected to stabilise the climate, we would still need climate scientists to continually improve models to understand the effects of other factors, such as solar cycles, land use changes etc. So the idea that climate scientists are falsely fabricating a crisis to create employment for themselves is really far-fetched.

          As for me personally, I'm not a climate scientist. But I am an engineer with a first degree in Math and Physics. I've had occasion to do a few projects using the basic physics and results that are also the basis for climate science. And from that basic physics, the simple conclusion that the way humans are altering our atmosphere causing net global warming is inescapable. And from the evidence I've personally seen of how climate has changed and resulting ecosystem changes in places I'm familiar with tells me we've got a serious problem building right now that's going to get really ugly. How ugly it gets depends on what changes we make now.

          • Bg 5.2.1.1.1
            16 October 2019 at 12:18 pm

            Fair comment, and thanks for explaining. Good dialogue, and I'll have a look at that site. Cheers

            • Andre 5.2.1.1.1.1
              16 October 2019 at 12:59 pm

              Thanks for taking the time to engage. If you've got questions, I'd be happy to give my take on it. Though chances are it's already been better answered by someone with more actual expertise than me on that skeptical science page.

    • Incognito 5.3
      15 October 2019 at 9:43 pm

      I (still) trust the weather report in MSM.

  6. WILD KATIPO 6
    15 October 2019 at 8:20 pm

    Meh. Bollix.

    The evolutionists are hung by their own balls. So is Al Gore.

    Go back to when the Darwinists ranted on about millennia… have a peek at all the epochs and 'periods' they so neatly put forth in their University's and Readers Digest articles decades back…

    If you think this era is bad…. maybe you better look back at the 'eras' they describe…

    Hardly fit for human habitation… if thats what you are concerned about… however, apparently there was life… just not human… MWHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

    Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic

    And all the other ' Zoics'.

    Neatly packaged into all the ' Zoics' just to set our minds at ease.

    Bollix.

    Get back to Genesis 6 and the Great Flood of Noah, you fools. – there you will see trees growing through rock strata that are supposed to be millions of years old- that in itself is enough to discount the B.S that is Anthropomorphic climate change.

    It was called the Great Flood , fools, – to which nearly EVERY major culture from the Andes to Europe to China made official notes of- and if not in official format , in folklore…did they have CELL PHONES back then to communicate a global disaster?

    I’ll leave you to think about it.

    Face it.

    Geez Wayne.

    Along with human stupidity- (which is a pimple on the rear end of the globe in terms of its effects compared to say Krakatoa) and volcanism, Sun and the Earths planetary alignment, oscillation of all the rest of the planets in regards to the Sun…

    Have a think about it and you just might just get the gist of it all.

    Anthropomorphic climate change.

    Rofl.

    Do we really indulge in so much self aggrandizement we think we have THAT MUCH control over the planet? – hardly.

    We havent even discovered Antarctica properly, – let alone the oceans.

    Get off the grass.

    • marty mars 6.1
      15 October 2019 at 9:38 pm

      If there were no cellphones then how did this historical record get made? woke up buddy

      • WILD KATIPO 6.1.1
        15 October 2019 at 10:01 pm

        Yes well, Fred was the exception… but even he couldn't explain fossilized trees in supposed 'millions of years of laid down strata'… Poor Fred.

        It took the dreamer Darwin in 1830 to do that… but poor Darwin… he didnt count on gorillas and Coelacanth's….. did he…

        • marty mars 6.1.1.1
          15 October 2019 at 10:06 pm

          last week I saw some fossilised trees that grew 170 million years ago – but you'd say that isn't possible cos the bible?

          do you know how things are dated? you know the half life of isotopes and stuff – doesn't make sense that that is wrong

    • Tony Veitch (not etc.) 6.2
      16 October 2019 at 8:48 am

      People are funny! Here's Wild Katipo, whose posts on a wide variety of subjects I've read and mostly agreed with over the years, and who is pretty consistently well left of centre, now turns out to be a climate change denier.

      Strange.

    • Phil 6.3
      16 October 2019 at 12:40 pm

      David Berkowitz's manifesto made more sense than whatever the fuck it is you've just brain farted on to a keyboard.

  7. WILD KATIPO 7
    15 October 2019 at 8:44 pm

    Oh and ah… just When are the Darwinists going to find the missing link tween Cro Magnon man and modern Homo Sapiens?

    Cro Magnon man I can abide… but all the other ape hominids theyve dug up?

    Not a chance.

    Too many discrepency’s.

    Or any other obviously non human ape species they would care to submit in their efforts in calling us all apes?

    I hear about Denisovin man, and Neanderthal,… and Giganthropicicus blacki ( an ape species 10 feet tall ) – and I read about Sasquatch,… how'd they survive?

    Seems to me if there are ' missing links' there would have been at least a legible chronological order … not just a bunch of ape teeth'… but no… nothing found since Louis Leakeys lil female ape… how droll.

    See where this is all going?

    I tell you… Al Gore and the Bilderberger society stood to gain billions if they had succeeded in having a global carbon tax. And reaped the benefits of relocating their businesses to third world country's where the carbon tax didnt apply …

    L0L.

    • The Al1en 7.1
      15 October 2019 at 9:27 pm

      Spoken like a god fearing nzf voting security guard from rural red neck New Zealand 🙄

      • WILD KATIPO 7.1.1
        15 October 2019 at 9:58 pm

        Um,… I hope you enjoy the cliches, cos my oh my,… that's all that short sentence of yours contains.

        Soz bud.

        Not a lot of content I'm sure you'll agree. As will most others. Try again.

        And btw … I live in Auckland ( unfortunately ) chump.

        • The Al1en 7.1.1.1
          16 October 2019 at 10:43 am

          "Being raised in the wops I have an affinity for the Greens. That ‘wilderness’ is my spiritual home. Its my place"

          As a self confessed climate change denier you'll also be wanting to walk back that statement of yours, too. Lol

          • WILD KATIPO 7.1.1.1.1
            16 October 2019 at 2:31 pm

            If you bothered for even one minute to see the entirety of what I'm putting forward you wouldn't waste your time with inanety's…

            I have not said there is no ' climate change'… only put forward other reasons for it.

            That said I doubt this ' climate change' is anywhere near the catastrophic levels that so many alarmists posit. Makes good book sales for them I'm sure. And politicians make good careers with it as well. Al Gore is quite a wealthy individual, for example.

            Yes we are going to see some climate change, but no,.. we will not see a new Ice age, and no ,.. we will not see an Earth bubbling with sulphurous gases and and a landscape like Mars or Venus.

            That was what the Darwinist's liked to dream of.

            And by dreams, I mean just that.

            A fiction created to try and explain our origins. A fiction of the 19th century age of so called rationalism that had an obsession with discrediting old documents… such as the Bible / Old Testament accounts. And all the other accounts of the Ancient world from Europe to South America who all recorded a great , catastrophic globalized flood event.

            • The Al1en 7.1.1.1.1.1
              16 October 2019 at 2:59 pm

              Denying man made climate change is, by all credible science, denying climate change. For every Greta, sadly, we find a one of you.

              As for your anti evolution nonsense, it's just that, nonsense. We know cases today where it can be witnessed in action, for example, the same species split on different land masses evolving differently according to their surroundings, just as Darwin observed all those years ago, just as the Human race has adapted to suit their specific climates.

              Arguing with a creationist is a futile experience, especially one whose clock only started six thousand years ago, so I'm not sure where we go from here if you're not open to science over faith.

            • the other pat 7.1.1.1.1.2
              17 October 2019 at 12:00 pm

              wether you are correct or not is moot…..what isnt is that there are zillions of practices we need to change to preserve our eco systems so we can have a viable planet to exsist on.

    • mikesh 7.2
      16 October 2019 at 9:25 am

      Why does there have to be a "missing link"? Why can homo sapiens not have emerged from the primate group through a process of gradual evolution?

    • Grant 7.3
      16 October 2019 at 10:30 am

      "Oh and ah… just When are the Darwinists going to find the missing link tween Cro Magnon man and modern Homo Sapiens?"

      The link has already been found and the fossil record for European Early Modern Humans (The Cro-Magnon designation is no longer used) is well understood. These people are the direct ancestors of anyone with deep ancestral links to Europe. They were the same species as us. Homo sapiens sapiens or H. s. sapiens.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_early_modern_humans

      • WILD KATIPO 7.3.1
        16 October 2019 at 2:54 pm

        So you focus on what I termed as ' Cro Magnon ' man.

        Now,… lets just see this for what it is. A chimpanzee is around 99% similar to a modern human. Yet they cannot interbreed. Now you are putting forwards a theory that it is possible for ancient ape forms to have evolved into modern humans. That is only possible if the geological record is true.

        Hence why the vid on petrified trees. Which amply demonstrates that not only is the timeline needed for something to petrify grossly inaccurate , – but also the whole geological timeline for the laying down of rock strata's.

        The whole chronology of the theory of evolution is shot full of holes.

        From a tooth they build whole skeletons,.. ( can you imagine forensic detectives working without the benefit of DNA research conjuring up an entire skeleton ? ) and from more complete skeletons they try to recreate the origins of modern man when what they know, – and what we can patently see, – is that it is no more than an extinct form of ape.

        The sloped foreheads, the cubic capacity of the skulls , the massive V shaped barrel chest, the non opposable thumbs, the huge arm and leg bones supporting massive skeletomuscular akin to the simians , not homo sapiens… and on and on it goes.

        True, some did have a hip structure more akin to upright walking, but not for long extended periods of time,… these would have been the less arboreal species,… plains dwellers,… but in every other aspect they were simply species of apes.

        Which leads us to the final conclusion. As to date , – there is NO definitive chronological data or physical records available to demonstrate a true record of the evolvement of modern humans from any of these.

        Modern man simply 'appeared' , without any sign of going through any lenghty process of modification.

        Especially from any apelike or simian forbears.

  8. WILD KATIPO 8
    15 October 2019 at 9:05 pm

    Here ya go… enjoy your man made climate change…

    Thing is?… I just dont think we are that capable…yeah we can wreck forests and cause localized environmental change… but global?

    Petrified trees through many layers!

    https://youtu.be/9DI49ZFIvWA?t=55https://youtu.be/9DI49ZFIvWA?t=55vv

    • Blazer 8.1
      15 October 2019 at 9:20 pm

      Banned for 30 years for having the temerity to challenge the Global warming I mean Climate Change movement!…BOL!

    • joe90 8.2
      15 October 2019 at 9:35 pm

      Oh dear, Dr Dino?

      Bless.

      • WILD KATIPO 8.2.1
        15 October 2019 at 9:54 pm

        Facts straight and dont look for an argument.

        Its been presented.

        Disprove it.

        That is, if you can detach yourself from your political narrative.

        They said Panda bears didn't exist til they found one 60 years later… pretty much the same with gorilla's… and then we find the Coelacanth,… and then the Billy Apes in the 1990's ,… you really think we know it all?… including something so complex as climactic conditions, planetary movements when we cant even find a damned ape or slow moving Panda bear for 6 decades?

        So who gets the pay cheque from the govt here ?,… a lot of good political mileage to be made from this one, dontcha reckon? And a lot of fortunes to be made… esp if your a climatologist or any other related field scientist. Wise up.

        You want truth?- do your research.

        And dont try and patronize people who hold a different view from yours with a fake blessing.

    • mikesh 8.3
      16 October 2019 at 9:30 am

      "Thing is?… I just dont think we are that capable…yeah we can wreck forests and cause localized environmental change… but global?"

      Individually, perhaps not. But through the combined "efforts" of seven or eight billion of us it is certainly possible.

      • WILD KATIPO 8.3.1
        16 October 2019 at 2:15 pm

        If you consider the fall out effects from just one volcano such as Krakatoa that changed the sunsets in England for several years…. Mt St Helen's, Mt Vesuvius…and so forth… ( and thats just volcanism) … and compare that to the activitys of humans… you will see how nature dwarfs anything we do.

        That is not to say there is no climate change. There is.

        But rather than lump it all under human activity and trying to pass greenhouse gas / carbon taxes ( which only benefit the elites while they relocate their polluting industry's to third world country's while shafting the rest of us ) , perhaps we should be looking at all aspects.

        Indeed, these self same alarmists on the one hand extol the validity of the unlivable ( unfit for human habitation ) 'zoics' of the past , because it underscores the Darwinian evolution theory , yet seem eager to rush through measures that really ,… do nothing to alleviate circumstances.

        Yes we can and do create desserts,.. we seem adept at it.

        From the Romans( apparently ) creating the Sahara desert to mass defoliation of the American continent 100 years back to the clearing of the Amazon now… same as in Europe several hundred years before…

        Personally?… I think that is a big part of the answer. Reforestation..

        A simple example is riparian repair… and the filtering effect it has on toxic byproducts of the agrarian industry's regards run off into the waterways. Take that on a much grander scale,… and we see how mass deforestation has in fact , created much of the situation we are in.

        If even a portion of those carbon taxes were put towards global reforestation… we may gain some semblance of equilibrium.

        The problem being, of course,… is arable land to provide food to feed the populace and areas in which to build. However, there were many examples of society's that seemed with good planning and a less aggressive approach to strike that balance.

        The question then is,… how much do we want to give up our technological society and all its conveniences ?

        • lprent 8.3.1.1
          16 October 2019 at 11:51 pm

          If you consider the fall out effects from just one volcano such as Krakatoa that changed the sunsets in England for several years…. Mt St Helen’s, Mt Vesuvius…and so forth… ( and thats just volcanism) … and compare that to the activitys of humans… you will see how nature dwarfs anything we do.

          Bad analogy and your own statement shows exactly why when you look at the evidence.

          Sure volcanoes can spew out vast amounts of gases and high ash. If they are a subduction volcano (rhyolitic or andesitic) this is mostly CO2 and they can throw ash high into the atmosphere.

          However if you look at the effects of these, what you will find is that the CO2 barely causes a blip except for locally for any single volcanic event. The ash can cause cooling if it gets tossed high enough – but only for a few years.

          Whereas the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has doubled in the last few hundred years. In geology, that was only seen rarely, that takes the geological processes like the Deccan and Siberian trap volcanic events hundreds of thousands of years to do. There is no known ‘natural’ cause that can cause the CO2 rise as rapidly as has happened in my lifetime.

          Similarly there are known documented changes of climate across Europe and the US from throwing soot particles into the upper atmosphere and causing localised cooling across those areas. Cleared up when the pollution standards were raised in the latter half of the 20th century.

          If you look, you can find scientific reports that the same thing has been happening from the massive rapid industrialisation in China – all the way to the US.

          You are using a false equivalence. Clearly outside of a orbital hit, nature is nowhere near as fast at crapping up the environment as humans have proved to be recently.

          On a couple of your other points are just about as wrong-headed. For instance, the increase in size of the deserts of northern africa is entirely consistent with the geological record of previous pre-glacial periods over the last 20 million years. The current orbital cycle has been slowly dropping up into another glacial for about 4-5000 years. So deserts start increasing in size in northern africa. It happens if there are romans or if there are not. That is a regular climatic event that has had a strong influence on human evolution.

          Mass deforestation is something that happens regularly as well for much the same reason. Glacials cause glaciers towards the poles and mountains and a rapid drop in forestation. They also cause deserts everywhere in the interior of continents around the tropics of capricorn and cancer with the same effects. The latitude bands that forests flourish in diminish markedly during glacials. They increase during the warmer parts of interglacials (apart from around the inundated seashores).

          Sure you can get deserts when there is increased heat. Or when there are super continents like Pangea form (the Gobi desert is a good example in the current epoch). But in the last 20 million years or so in the current ice age while we have been getting large glacials – paradoxically most deserts form when the world climate cools towards a glacial

          If you want to understand geological natural cycles, then I’d suggest reading a bit more widely than urban myths.

          BTW: My first degree was a BSc in Earth Sciences. I try to keep up with what the current trends are in between programming.

    • Alice Tectonite 8.4
      16 October 2019 at 11:09 am

      "Petrified trees through many layers"

      Indicates nothing more than rapid sedimentation rate. Real geologists don't make a huge deal about them, only fundy creationist types.

      Funnily enough, the basic processes still going on in the present. Not uncommon to see standing dead trees buried in many sediment layers. Just pay attention to the landscape out in the backcountry…

      • WILD KATIPO 8.4.1
        16 October 2019 at 1:58 pm

        Sad thing is, these same geologists make a big deal on rock strata's and base a whole fictitious timeline on them.

        And that skews the whole narrative of the fossil record.

        Still, if you want to defend a theory that was posited in the 1830's, all power to you.

        Me?… I'd rather research the records of many cultures that actually recorded a global flood event that destroyed whole civilizations.

        • Alice Tectonite 8.4.1.1
          16 October 2019 at 2:47 pm

          Timescales: I'd rather use one based real world evidence rather than one based on religious dogma.

          Flood oral histories: entirely unsurprising that many cultures have these as agricultural societies like living on flood plains (good fertile soil). As the term suggests these flood occasionally. Doesn't require a global flood to explain …

          • WILD KATIPO 8.4.1.1.1
            16 October 2019 at 3:06 pm

            I think you are also minimizing the accounts of these large long established society's in order to support your own narrative.

            Can you not see how ludicrous it would be for all the global major cultures at that time who all recorded a cataclysmic event at the same time ,… to simply report on a localized flood event that only affected their seasonal crops?

            Hardly a worldwide calamity to warrant them recording it.

            They were far more advanced at that time than we give them credit for.

            International trade was well established. for a start. And if we take into account the great Chinese fleets ,…we see how mobile they were. Given , of course, that the great Chinese fleets came much later… but then we have the trading Phoenicians and many other cultures, – including the Polynesians as a good example.

            Dont you think that the magnitude of such an event would have caused major disruption and was worthy of being recorded by so many cultures?

            This was no 'mere' local flood event.

  9. velcro 9
    16 October 2019 at 9:54 am

    The question is not whether human activities are causing warming. Very few would claim not. I have never personally met such a person. The question is – at what rate? The answer is – not much, and decreasingly so as CO2 concentration rises, because the relationship between atmospheric temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration is logarithmic. And the same goes for water vapour. There is no impending climate crisis

    • weka 9.1
      16 October 2019 at 10:19 am

      What if you're wrong and there is a climate crisis?

    • Alice Tectonite 9.2
      16 October 2019 at 10:51 am

      "There is no impending climate crisis"

      Multiple citations needed (from respectable peer reviewed geoscience journals).

      (Hint: you don't understand the CO2 logarithmic effect…)

      • velcro 9.2.1
        16 October 2019 at 11:01 am

        You provide them, Alice; and prove your point

        • Alice Tectonite 9.2.1.1
          16 October 2019 at 11:11 am

          I can't prove your misinterpretation of the logarithmic effect. (Because its nonsense)

          • Alice Tectonite 9.2.1.1.1
            16 October 2019 at 2:54 pm

            Elaborating slightly: Velcro's interpretation is different from mainstream science & just happens to coincide with denialist talking points. To be taken seriously requires some pretty good evidence from credible sources.

          • Velcro 9.2.1.1.2
            16 October 2019 at 6:08 pm

            You are trying to be funny, aren't you, Alice. The Logarithm is a mathematical function, the inverse of Exponentialisation. The physical reason why the CO2 warming effect is logarithmically related to CO2 concentration is that the more CO2 molecules there are in the atmosphere, the less outgoing infrared radiation at 4.5 & 14.5 micron wavelength there is for each molecule to absorb, because the other molecules have got it first. That is basic physics, accepted by every scientist from Arrhenius onwards for over 100 years. Dont believe me – look at the citations in IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report.

            • In Vino 9.2.1.1.2.1
              16 October 2019 at 6:29 pm

              Yet the total heat retained can still increase. You are pretending that it can't?

            • Alice Tectonite 9.2.1.1.2.2
              17 October 2019 at 1:56 pm

              Comprehension is obviously not your strong point as I never questioned whether there was an approximately logarithmic between atmospheric CO2 and radiative forcing.

              It's your interpretation that I was questioning. Specifically that because logarithmic relation everything is fine & fucking dandy & there is no climate change problem. (Odd that you cite IPCC AR5, you obviously haven't understood much of it.)

              And if you had read the climate science you would know that the logarithmic relation was with radiative forcing…

    • Pat 9.3
      16 October 2019 at 7:16 pm

      …because the relationship between atmospheric temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration is logarithmic.

      thanks for that meaningless statement

      • lprent 9.3.1
        16 October 2019 at 10:58 pm

        thanks for that meaningless statement

        Good description of the statement. It is meaningless. After all CO2 concentrations have more than doubled in 1800, but average atmospheric temperatures have only risen by about 1 degree celsius – quite how this mathematical ‘genius’ gets a logarithmic relationship out of that is a stunning indictment of their ability to visualise a graph.

        Not only that, it also totally ignores the effects of the oceans and water bodies at adsorbing both CO2 and extra heat.

        Basically the numbskull doesn’t appear to understand anything about the mechanisms of climate change.

        • Alice Tectonite 9.3.1.1
          17 October 2019 at 2:46 pm

          Velcro's got confused between temperature & change in radiative forcing due to atmospheric CO2. Increased forcing of a little under 4 W/m^2 for doubling of atmospheric CO2 (logarithmic), but it doesn't mean what he thinks it means & is incorporated in climate models.

  10. Velcro 10
    16 October 2019 at 9:21 pm

    Meaningless to you, perhaps, Pat. But not to anyone with good scientific training

    [Corrected typo in user handle. Please be more careful next time]

    • Pat 10.1
      17 October 2019 at 9:23 am

      Lol….it is obviously an algorithmic relationship due to the complicated nature of interactions but the key point is there is a causal relationship which I note you avoid denying

      "Temperature Change and Carbon Dioxide Change

      One of the most remarkable aspects of the paleoclimate record is the strong correspondence between temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere observed during the glacial cycles of the past several hundred thousand years. When the carbon dioxide concentration goes up, temperature goes up. When the carbon dioxide concentration goes down, temperature goes down. A small part of the correspondence is due to the relationship between temperature and the solubility of carbon dioxide in the surface ocean, but the majority of the correspondence is consistent with a feedback between carbon dioxide and climate."

      https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/temperature-change

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  • Joint statement from the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand

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  • Funding confirmed for regions affected by North Island Weather Events

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  • Strengthening partnership with Ngāti Maniapoto

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  • Transport Minister thanks outgoing CAA Chair

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  • NZ support for sustainable Pacific fisheries

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  • Students’ needs at centre of new charter school adjustments

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  • Commissioner replaces Health NZ Board

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  • Minister to speak at Australian Space Forum

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  • Climate Change Minister to attend climate action meeting in China

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  • New infrastructure energises BOP forestry towns

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