Gareth – Page 151

Sciblogging: they blinded me with science

This week sees the launch of the next big thing in science communication down under – Sciblogs, the new science blogging platform from the NZ Science Media Centre. Sciblogs is hosting 25 blogs, from scientists in Crown Research Institutes, universities and private research companies, with two dozen PhDs involved. I’m letting the side down on that score… but Hot Topic is very pleased to be on the Sciblogs blogroll as one of the founding participants. There are some established bloggers on the platform, including Ken Perrott’s Open Parachute and Jim McVeagh’s MacDoctor, and there many others that deserve a wider audience. New bloggers include Andy Reisinger, a senior climate researcher from VUW, and there’s my new favourite blog with kakapo pictures: Chthonic Wildlife Ramblings (title explanation).

All Hot Topic‘s posts are being syndicated to Sciblogs, and will appear there under our own banner, but this site will continue as before. All discussion will take place here, unless and until we can work out a way of syncing comments between the to two platforms. Sciblogs looks set to be a one-stop shop for great science coverage from New Zealand, and I wish it (and all who sail in her) well.

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Spot the blogger!

Self-interested, myopic hot-air

New Zealand’s farming leadership have not distinguished themselves in the debate about climate policy. Federated Farmers president Don Nicholson has called for NZ to set no target for emissions reductions and for agriculture to be excluded from the emissions trading scheme, and former vice-president Frank Brenmuhl is still ruminating on the need for more debate on basics:

Political expediency has ensured the scientific debate has been reduced to a battle between believers and deniers.

No prizes for guessing Brenmuhl’s position… It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to point to an excellent analysis of agriculture’s role in the ETS by Adolf Stroombergen at Infometrics. He is scathing of Federated Farmers:

Once again we hear Federated Farmers bleating about the potential burden placed on them by an emissions trading scheme, proclaiming that farmers are doing all they can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hence any carbon charge on agriculture would be pointless. Rubbish.

Stroombergen doesn’t mince his words:

Arguing that agriculture should not be part of this mechanism has as much merit as arguing that it should not pay ACC premiums linked to its accident rate, or that it should not face fines for polluting waterways.

Merit has seldom been a key feature of Federated Farmer’s arguments about emissions policy, but Stroombergen notes that:

The self-interested myopic hot air from some in the agricultural sector has fortunately been given little credence.

Perhaps Nicholson and Brenmuhl haven’t got the ear of the right people in the National Party. We should all be grateful for that.

The biased leading the blind

Two of New Zealand’s most prominent climate cranks, “inexpert witness” Chris de Freitas and Bob “great communicator” Carter are no strangers to the art of misrepresenting facts in support of their peculiar political visions, but recent articles by the pair set new standards for economy with the truth. Here’s De Freitas, writing in Energy NZ:

…no one has yet found even a shred of objective scientific evidence that humans are causing damaging global climate change.

No to be outdone, in Aussie “journal of ideas” Quadrant Carter revives the oldest zombie fact of them all:

As the temperature trend for ten years now has been one of cooling, since the unusually warm El Nino year of 1998, this requires a precautionary response to cooling rather than warming.

De Freitas’ piece is — even to my jaundiced eyes — remarkable for how liberally he misleads his readers…

Continue reading “The biased leading the blind”

One of the saddest encounters I had with a frog…

Sir David Attenborough makes an eloquent plea for the survival of rainforests on behalf of the Prince of Wales’ Rainforest Project, courtesy of the Telegraph. He’s a great communicator, and it’s an important subject. No gorillas involved.

“We’re screwed” – New York tabloid bites climate bullet

The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid flagship in the big apple, has published a “special edition” to welcome the 100 world leaders who are gathering in the city to discuss climate change at the UN. Screaming in best tabloid fashion “We’re Screwed”, the paper paints a telling picture of what life will be like for New Yorkers as their climate changes. Under headlines like Congress to New York: Swim For It, the paper examines the stark reality of current policies on climate change, but also finds space for Pam’s Pom-Poms (left). And the outlook for beagles when sea level rise hits is sad indeed… Cat lovers should avoid Calvin & Hobbes, but the Wizard of Id is on form.

[Hat tip: Sonny, and thanks to this lot.]