Dewhurst’s den

Time for Roger Dewhurst to have his own thread. Roger, post only here, please. Any comments elsewhere will be deleted.

198 thoughts on “Dewhurst’s den”

    1. Well, how amazing! I’ve never seen the like!

      I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but well done, Gareth.

      Giving Roger his own thread might seem like banishing him to the naughty step, but of course it’s really just letting him loose in his own lovely sandpit.

      In fact, I like the idea so much that I’ve decided to copy it. Roger now has his own thread at Climate Conversation, too: “Roger’s Rationalists”.

      You’re welcome to brawl with him there. He’s so lively, don’t you think? You never know, relieving some of the pressure on him just might let him produce some great work.

      Let’s see what happens.

  2. I’ll take the invitation if no one else will.

    Discussion: what kind of an issue is climate policy for New Zealand? Is it an environmental issue? Currently the portfolio is tied in with the Minister for the Environment and policy is written by MfE.

    Is this correct? Is at an economic issue? Should it be run out of MED? Or is it a financial issue due to the large cash flows that could come in or out of Crown accounts? Should it be run out of Treasury?

    Other nations sometimes tie it to the Minister for Energy, but this is because emissions are largely an energy related in those countries. Should we tie it to the Minister for Ag?

    My proposition: It is a MFAT issue.

    We take action to protect foreign affairs and trade. That is the only benefit we can get.

    Weather you believe climate change is caused by CO2 emissions or not, you have to realise New Zealand can not have a material impact on climate change (0.2% of global emissions). Our only aim in this space should be to protect our international image and maybe ensure others address the issue (although I do not believe there is an issue).

    I think once you realise this the shape of New Zealand’s policy response should take becomes obvious, and the position of our negotiators take should be obvious.

    Our domestic policy should aim to be least cost possible while still appearing we are engaged. And our negotiators should aim to get the best deal for New Zealand possible, so as to reduce fiscal costs, while still appearing we are genuine about the issue.

    There is the chance of damage to our reputation if we do nothing – however the scale of this is unquantified and likely not as large as some expect. So if this is understood we should aim to not pay greater than the cost we are trying to avoid.

    We can also look at any potential benefits from doing extra – however these are likely to be fairly limited given our nation already has a strong environmental brand.

    1. Good, cogent thinking. I agree with what you say.

      I only regret that the debate, such as passes for it, now bypasses the science and we are left only with the practical politics.

      Still, as you’ve analysed it, the science hardly inflates NZ’s role in the affair. It comes down to a small country’s image. Which might be small enough not to ruin us.

    2. Weather you believe climate change is caused by CO2 emissions or not, you have to realise New Zealand can not have a material impact on climate change (0.2% of global emissions). Our only aim in this space should be to protect our international image and maybe ensure others address the issue (although I do not believe there is an issue).

      By this reasoning if there were 500 emitters all emitting the same thing no-one would claim they have to do anything.

      Of course as a leading member of the 1st world, treading a path unknown is quite important, it shows other developing nations how to do it. ie, the other flaw is that the positive effect of our action is limited to our own emissions, which is not the case.

      1. SamV, I only claim that with our 0.2% we can not affect climate change ourselves. It is not an environmental issue because we can not change the environment.

        As you say, we can have an impact on what others will do. And I concede this point in my first post.

        My point is it should be viewed as a foreign affairs and trade issue not an environmental issue.

  5. Agree in principle with your sentiments R2D2 but would probably put it higher than ‘merely’ MFAT. As you say the really big issue is how our actions impact on our trade, and other external financial flows. I think that there are two sides to this:
    1. Direct trade related – the cost / benefits of paying for carbon credits or of including the costs in the production. My guess would be that countries that don’t have adequate carbon costings included in their economies will start to see carbon tariffs placed on their exports – there’s no way nationally based carbon reduction schemes can work otherwise. So even though any CO2 reductions we make are always going to be minor as a percentage of the world’s total (as is our population and our economy), the effect of them on our economy in both cost and benefit is obviously going to be large.

    2. Indirect – leverage and the ability to negotiate favourable trade and carbon-related international agreements. The big issue here for NZ is the place of our farming and forestry. We are unique in being part of the developed world (ie high historic and present CO2 emissions) but with relatively small industrial-based emissions. Also our farming is relatively low in added emissions (ie apart from the biological based emissions). Ideally, our negotiators would focus on ensuring that future carbon treaties are favourable to our unique situation as far as that is possible. To ensure that the climate legislation we enact must provide sufficient credibility so that we are taken seriously in the negotiations. My worry is that if we are seen to be not pulling our weight or worse to be free-loading then the negotiators will not have sufficient leverage to convince other countries to support our positions.

    The ETS also has domestic implications that only indirectly impact on the external position as above – i.e. it provides a carbon pricing mechanism that facilitates a shift in the economy towards low-carbon activities and away from high-carbon activities. This obviously has an effect on external trade (ie potential reduction in oil imports and potential implications on acceptability of our products overseas) but also has a direct impact on investment decisions within this economy – e.g. energy / transportation infrastructure, types of industrial development, land use, etc. Depending on how the ETS is structured, it will promote quite different kinds of future development in NZ.

    So yes, to a large extent there are significant external implications, but there are v. large implications for the future development of NZ itself – depending on whether or not carbon inputs are fully accounted for or left out, NZ could look very different in 25 years time.

  6. BillyT,

    I will address point 3, as point 1 and 2 (how much we can influence other nations and trade sanction risk) is unquantifiable and open to POV bias.

    The economic benefit of moving early.

    First of all, if someone has already said something better, why say it again, read section 14.5 of the Garaut Review:

    http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/GarnautClimateChangeReview-FinalReport-Chapter14/$File/Garnaut%20Climate%20Change%20Review%20-%20Final%20Report%20-%20Chapter%2014.pdf

    BillyT,

    Currently the economic situation is that there is a price on emissions in some nations but not others. If this is past onto producers through an ETS you are right, the economics will lead to declines in certain industries. If you do not expect this uneven playing field to ever be resolved then we should implement an ETS with no allocation to trade-exposed firms.

    However, one would assume that all nations will need to one day have a price on emissions if we are to address climate change. At this time industries will not be attracted to where there is no price on emissions, but to where production causes the least emissions (and is lowest cost).

    Therefore the current economic climate needs to be viewed as a transitionary phase. Interventionist policy should aim to mimic the final environment businesses will operate in once the world has a price on carbon. So as to prepare the nation ‘for a carbon constrained economy’.

    Garnaut puts it the following way;
    “There is no basis for compensation arising from the loss of profits or
    asset values as a result of this new policy. The rationale for payments to trade-exposed, emissions-intensive industries is different and sound. It is to avoid the economic and environmental costs of having firms in these industries contracting more than, and failing to expand as much as, they would in a world in which all countries were applying carbon constraints involving similar costs to ours.”

    “Despite this being a complex problem, the correct response is based on the following policy prescription: For every unit of production, eligible firms receive a credit against their permit obligations equivalent to the expected uplift in world product prices that would eventuate if our trading competitors had policies similar to our own.”

    This is the thinking that led into the Aussies proposing an intensity based scheme, and that the Nats are now mimicking. It is not to ‘protect’ firms from moving to a new economy, it is to shield firms from the stagnated response to climate change.

  7. R2: The answer to your initial question is really “all of the above”. The response to climate change has to be an “all of government” matter because it impinges directly on so many aspects of the economic and social structures in any country.

    Let’s try and define the national interest. First of all, New Zealand has as much interest in avoiding the damaging impacts of climate change as any country in the world, even if the direct impacts here are likely to be less severe than in many places. From that should flow a commitment to doing our “fair share” of action to restrain emissions, and that means accepting the same burden as other similar countries – for this purpose, let’s say the OECD. That gives us the parameters within which we need to be operating in order to be internationally credible (80% by 2050, 25-30% by 2020, minimum). These targets should be determined primarily by scientific considerations (ie what level of emissions will avoid damaging change), but obviously the international real politik may result in less stringent targets and sub-optimal mechanisms for getting there.

    How NZ gets to those figures is a matter for our government, working with and within international structures. A least-cost response is a whole of economy response (see the NZIER/Infometrics report we were discussing last weekend), and so we need to design policy that shares the cost across the economy in as fair a way as possible. No one arm of government can do that. It’s not MFAT’s role to decide the balance between energy and agriculture policy, but neither is it the role of MfE or Treasury. That’s why I say a whole of government response is required, and why I have been so dismayed by the present government’s dismantling of key parts of the climate policy framework such as energy efficiency standards, and its willingness to pander to the interests of big emitters at the expense of the taxpayer.

    New Zealand’s international trading position is only one factor in this balancing act, and arguably not the most important. I think it’s probably better to think in terms of NZ’s international branding, reflect on the importance of tourism, and design policy that enhances our unique selling proposition. Current policy positions us at the back of the international pack, and that’s a lose-lose situation.

    1. Yeah, it defiantly has aspects that need analysis from MfE, Treasury and MAF, as I mentioned in my original post. As you say it impacts overseas relations, hence my thought thats its primary ministry should be MFAT. But how is it tied to MfE?

      1. It’s tied in to everything… Environmental standards are just as important to the national brand as, say, DOC’s management of the conservation estate.

        That said, my view (as expressed in my submission to the ETS Review) is that there needs to be central coordination of climate policy to ensure that everything is pulling in the same direction. Cutting DOC’s budget, for instance, would be very bad news if it resulted in a loss of native forest carbon.

    1. From Roger’s link:

      And why should they believe anything that comes from the global warming camp? Not only has the globe not warmed over the last decade but the Arctic ice is returning, the Antarctic isn’t shrinking, polar bear populations aren’t diminishing, hurricanes aren’t becoming more extreme. The only thing that’s scary about the science is the frequency with which doomsayer data is hidden from public scrutiny, manipulated to mislead, or simply made up.

      That’s four outright lies and one blatantly hypocritical assertion. By all means rely on that sort of “evidence” Roger. Makes you look even more like a plonker…

  9. I love how commenters like R2 try to make the “too small to have an impact” argument on a blog, while completely immune to the irony of the fact that by their own logic they can have no real impact on anyone else’s opinion since they are only one of several million internet users.
    If you truly believed this argument, R2, you would stop posting anything to do with climate change forthwith. Your opinion (among other things) is too small.

    1. Haha a very good point!

      However your conclusion is based on the assumption that the only return I get out of posting is if I change other people opinions. I might just simply enjoy debate!

      1. As long as we’re clear that you don’t expect (in fact believe it impossible) to have any impact whatsoever on anybody else’s opinion.

        In which case you must be a somewhat poor debater…

  10. There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ‘ulterior motive’ … She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

    Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize … She was not selected.

    Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

    1. Perhaps this suggests a method of dating denialist memes?

      The time over which that little canard was true was January to December 2008, with the awards being announced in October of each year. This suggests an age of around 1.25±0.5yr.

      Indeed using Google by searching for exact sentences from the copy, using a timeline search we find traces to the exact text of the above comment, such as this forum post from July 2008 – bang in the middle of that range – using Google timeline search we can get a crude picture of how widely it was forwarded since then. The high number of times that comment was read lends itself to the theory that it was linked to heavily and possibly the source of the meme. Interestingly in the early days of its life, during the time that it was factually correct, it was not forwarded heavily according to Google’s timeline search.

      However from the first half of this year – as soon as it started becoming factually incorrect – it found flourish within the denialosphere, being copied 39 additional times. Clearly the meme is in a growth phase, even though the exact (incorrect) corpus appears with no apparent fact checking by those relaying it – much like the way I got an e-mail telling me about a fantastic cosmic coincidence coming up in August, yet the original e-mail had omitted the year so the incorrect e-mail was still circulating for 5 years after the actual close proximity with Mars.

      But I digress. This meme.

      Already in the three months since July it has been repeated a further 79 times. It is currently up to 122 occurrences on Google and showing no sign of slowing.

      Clearly one result is not sufficient to draw a conclusion that the level of forwarding of ideas through the climate change denialosphere increases with factual inaccuracy – but it is a tempting anecdote to draw upon.

      1. Yes, well denialists seem to have as poor a grasp of time as they have of reality. There are still people saying “it has been cooling for the last ten years”, even though that particular cherry-pick depends on 1998 being ten years ago, rather than 11 years ago as it has been for the last 10 months.

        Some deniers (Treadgold, for example) have recently started claiming that the “cooling” began in 2001 to get round this – poor old 1998 is being forgotten already. In a couple of years no doubt we will hear that it has been cooling since 2005, which was the next record warm year.

  12. “The biggest snowfall for 25 years anecdotally has hit Hawkes Bay.
    And in October (not mid winter).
    I wonder if NIWA will cite this in their climate summary. There are some 80 people still trapped in cars in the high country (overnight) between Napier/Taupo. Some 2-300 were rescued by the army overnight.
    This is unheard of in my 25 years here.
    Thank god for global warming. It would have been much worse.”

    The last sentence is tongue in cheek in case you did not notice.

  13. Ultra cherry-picking. Counter-picking would point out the record warmth in August and above-average temperatures in September. I suggest you look at the NOAA monthly reports for 2009 and ponder on yet another warm global year despite low solar activity and unfavourable ENSO conditions.

  14. Roger, an increase in unusual / extreme weather is not an argument against global warming. I expect you know this, but are just trying to keep the illusion of an AGW “debate” alive by tossing in anything you can, no matter how fatuous.

    1. It is however funny how it gets back to talking about the weather. “Cold aint it?”. “So much for global warming then…”. Or August – “Been warm aint it?”. “Must be global warming…” I guess that talking about the weather is a common ploy when you’ve nothing else to say…

      The fact is that day to day swings in temperature totally swamp the small but critical increases in average temperature over the years – what’s it been? Half a degree? Not going make much difference to a southerly dropping the temperature by 15 degrees.

      It’s a bit like the steady increase in average temperature between July and January – it’s real enough, but doesn’t stop a day or a week in October from being much colder than most of August. Of course, nobody goes around saying that summer obviously isn’t coming this year just because there is a snowstorm in October.

  15. “Global warming brings more extreme weather.”

    Is there any rational basis for this belief in the face of historical evidence that cold periods were dry but windy and the warm periods were wet and stable? Furthermore cooling seems to imply a steeper temperature gradient between the equator and the poles which should lead to more wind and extreme weather.

    Surely the loess of central asia is a pretty good pointer to the nature of cold climate?

    How and why do the warmers discount the value of increased carbon dioxide as plant food? Surely so much carbon is now locked up in coal, oil, gas and carbonate rocks that there is now a carbon dioxide deficit in the atmosphere? Why else would commercial greenhouse users introduce the gas into their greenhouses?

  16. On weather extremes: more heat in the system means more water vapour in the atmosphere = more fuel for weather — heavier rain (compare normal rain in NZ to normal rain in Tonga: see http://bit.ly/1WqqTx for some discussion.

    CO2 fertilisation is a real effect, but nowhere near as important as you make out. Look up Liebig’s Law of the Minimum. CO2 “starvation” is not limiting plant growth.

    1. CO2 fertilisation is a real effect, but nowhere near as important as you make out.

      Hey! come on Garth, we all know that the planet is going to burst out in bloom any minute now.

  17. “On weather extremes: more heat in the system means more water vapour in the atmosphere = more fuel for weather — heavier rain (compare normal rain in NZ to normal rain in Tonga”

    Warmer=Wetter. Thank you. Tell that to the IPCC.

    The Carboniferous period and greenhouse growers provide rather better evidence than Liebig! An appropriate name perhaps.

    1. But… warmer = wetter ≠ wetter everywhere. It means heavier rain in places where it already rains a lot, such as the West Coast.

      You need to do some reading on CO2 fertilisation. At the moment you’re just trumpeting your ignorance.

    2. Hang on a moment Roger, you’re supposed to be arguing that it is getting colder, not warmer.

      Do I sense a change of tactics? “OK, I accept that it is warming, but hey I’m in favour of that – a hot steamy climate is good because greenhouse growers won’t need to add CO2.” (do they really do that?)

      1. “Hang on a moment Roger, you’re supposed to be arguing that it is getting colder, not warmer.”

        I think that the climate is probably cooling. I think that cooling will make life much less pleasant than a similar amount of warming. That is my position.

        “Do I sense a change of tactics? “OK, I accept that it is warming, but hey I’m in favour of that – a hot steamy climate is good because greenhouse growers won’t need to add CO2.” (do they really do that?)”

        No change of tactics. I merely state that we will be better off with warming than cooling. I do not indulge in wishful thinking though.

        Yes, growers do add carbon dioxide. Growers also heat greenhouses to get a nice steamy climate therein. Some find that insufficient and pump in a bit of carbon dioxide as well being well aware that the gas is the ONLY source of carbon for the carbohydrates, sugars, starches cellulose etc which the plants make. Try Google or any decent textbook on plant physiology.
        Gareth might profit from reading one of the latter.

        1. One of the reasons that growers heat greenhouses is that it’s cheaper than cooling them (strange, but true). In the controlled circumstances of a hothouse, CO2 fertilisation can be useful for some plants, but not all. Out in the real world, CO2 fertilisation looks to be a real, but not major factor in plant growth. There are no plants that are “starved” of CO2: the limiting factor to growth is usually something else – water, heat, nutrients.

          1. “One of the reasons that growers heat greenhouses is that it’s cheaper than cooling them (strange, but true).”

            Not too strange actually. Cooling them costs money and slows down plant growth. Growers are not THAT stupid even if the AGW true beleivers are.

            “In the controlled circumstances of a hothouse, CO2 fertilisation can be useful for some plants, but not all.”

            For all but more for some that for others perhaps. If the plants are required to produce sugars, starches or cellulose, and we do not cultivate many plants to produce anything else, carbon dioxide is essential.

            “Out in the real world, CO2 fertilisation looks to be a real, but not major factor in plant growth. ”

            The real world is something quite alien to you I am afraid.

            “There are no plants that are “starved” of CO2: the limiting factor to growth is usually something else – water, heat, nutrients.”

            If their growth is not being limited by a shortage of carbon dioxide growers would not add it would they? The limiting factor outside a greenhouse may be water or or some nutrient in the soil. It sometimes is, but since these things are always taken care of in a greenhouse environment carbon dioxide will be limiting.

            1. Good. Your last paragraph is correct. Apply that to the world outside the greenhouse, and Liebig’s law of the minimum applies.

        1. Excellent, perhaps you can explain the difference between the C₃ and C₄ metabolic cycles and thereby explain why most tropical plant life on earth does not respond to increased levels of CO₂ with increased growth, as well as explain other limiting factors of land-based carbon uptake. Hint: rot? not

          1. Are you suggesting that most tropical plants do not manufacture sugars, starches and cellulose? Are you suggesting that they get their carbon from some source other than atmospheric carbon dioxide? Irrespective of the metabolic pathway all carbon in these plants comes from the atmosphere. Look at the start of the process and look at the end. The pathway is irrelevant. Of course if you propose to argue that they contain less carbon than other plants perhaps you will explain how and why. I am not the slightest bit interested in your suggestions that I should read this or that. If you can extract a coherent argument from these papers just do so and demonstrate for us that you are something more than a syncophant regurgitating anything and everything you are told.

            1. It’s quite simple Roger, if you had bothered to spend half the time reading the references I sent you as you do commenting, you’d know this quite quickly.

              Spoon-feeding you with references didn’t work… so… it’s time for the airplane!!

              Here comes a clue! It’s making a noise like an aeroplane… RWAAAAOOOOWWW!!! Open your mind wide!

              The Câ‚„ metabolic cycle already has a mechanism for concentrating COâ‚‚ for photosynthesis. They do not respond to increased COâ‚‚ levels by increased production of sugars; the concentrations are already as high as they can be.

              Open wide!! RWWAAAAAOOOOOOWW!

              While increased levels of COâ‚‚ may assist the rate of photosynthesis in plants with the C₃ metabolic pathway, this is only one input to a reaction with multiple inputs, happening in the real world. A shortage of water or nutrients will also prevent photosynthesis from occurring, no matter what the COâ‚‚ level. Various field trials have seem that the levels of pests goes up with increased COâ‚‚, due to the “tastier” leaves. So there are more factors at work than “more COâ‚‚ = more growth”

              Regurgitating syncophant, eh? Who was the one caught regurgitating a 1.25±0.5 yo denialist canard?

            2. There are three types of photosynthesis: C3, C4 and CAM. C3 photosynthesis occurs in woody, round-leafed plants, which are 95% of all plants. C4 and CAM photosynthesis is found in drier, hotter land plants, grasses, sedges, grains, with CAM in cacti and bromeliads. It is a more efficient, process with the first intermediary compound including four carbon atoms where the “round leaves” start with three, hence the “C3” and “C4” labels.

              Where C4 and CAM appear virtually identical they are rarely discussed separately. C4 and CAM are more efficient in water and energy use. The functional difference is that CAM plants employ an “idle” function that saves energy and water. It is employed during times of stress; high temperature or lack of water.

              During dry periods CAM stomata are closed during the day. CO2 captured overnight is stored in solution to be processed when the light returns. C4 plants photosynthesize faster under high heat and light conditions than C3 plants, but it is now clear the increased rate is due to higher operating temperatures and the fact that chemical reactions double in rate for every 10 Celsius degrees they are raised. The only remarkable fact is that this was only recently confirmed and accepted.

              The C3 class plants respond very well to additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when grown in greenhouses and we have demonstrated they respond well to soil-sourced carbon dioxide. (See CO2 Root Absorption)

              The C4 class includes all grasses and grains. These are warmer area plants that were reported to show about half the response to increased CO2 as did the C3 plants in early studies. New work has resulted in a dispute over this fact and there will appear to be confusion in the literature. We believe the rates will be found to be the same or greater for C4 plants when the science is settled..

              In the on line science journal “CO2 Science,” Vol 6, Number 40, 1 October 2003, authors Keith Sherwood and Craig Idso presented a study showing a 53% increase in the dry weight biomass for tall Fescue (Festuca arundacea) grown in a CO2 rich atmosphere. They observed a 14% reduction in lignin, to us the indigestible part of the plant.

              Fescue is a C4 plant and the increase occurred when the grass was grown in an atmosphere with 700 ppm carbon dioxide; roughly double that of today’s air. In summation they wrote, “…therefore it can be concluded that atmospheric CO2 enrichment was a hugely positive factor, made better use of the applied nitrogen such that additional nitrogen had no effect.”

              Their conclusion is important as C4 grass and grain crops have previously been treated in the literature as having a physiology less amenable to increased CO2 than C3 plants and perhaps less accepting of earth delivered CO2 as their root structures are spare compared to C3 plants. In the Sherwood-Craig study the differences were non-existent. The chemistries of the two reaction pathways show no reason why there should be a difference. This is very encouraging as C4 plants are responsible for all our grain and are of primary economic importance in our economy.

            6. I like the way he even replicates the mistake in the article, stating that the authors are “Keith Sherwood” and “Craig Idso”, when in fact they are “Keith, Sherwood and Craig Idso”, i.e. two brothers and their father, well-known oil-funded denialists, with a long track record of spreading lies and misinformation.

              Pathetic, Roger, just pathetic.

  19. I think the only thing we can take from the current weather is that next time an unusual hot event occurs and the normal characters trumpet it as proof of global warming,

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/fires-which-burn-brightly/

    we should point to events like this and say weather will always have strange variances. Most of the time it is caused by a high and a low interacting in a strange way and quite separate from CO2.

            1. All the evidence of your thinking R2 shows that you have made up your mind and are unwilling to change it.
              You claim to be here for debate but since even the most advanced meteorological science does not meet your standards for evidence of AGW there is no chance of reason entering the equation for you.
              Thinking does not equal wisdom and it is extremely unwise of you to believe this to be the case.

              What is your real reason for being here? You claim upthread to be looking for debate but it seems to me more likely you are just another troll.

        1. 1) psst, nobody tell Roger but there are other currencies in the world where 1 and/0r 2 cent coins are in use (Eurozone, US to name but > 150x NZ population).
          2) my apologies for having overvalued your contributions.

  21. Golly Roger, who writes your material?
    Who else could lay claim to deathless prose like “In your dreams, sonny” in the same thread as a post meeting Godwin’s Law? The only thing missing is a 419.

    But, you know, for a picture of you kissing a goat I’d bite.

    1. Bryan Leyland accurately predicted that emissions trading would lead to rorts. Garth George merely announced the rorts that had been predicted. You are the fool for failing to see that rorts such as this would eventuate and, of course, for believing in the scam in which the rorts are founded.

      1. The “rorts” Garth refers to were nothing to do with the carbon trades themselves, but the tax (VAT/GST) treatment of them in different countries.

        Objecting to carbon trading because some people will fiddle the system is about as logical as insisting that because a few businessmen are crooks we should ban capitalism.

        Garth George appears happy to tell lies for a living. You may respect him for that, but that says a great deal more about you than I would ever wish to.

  23. Hi Roger.

    From post 38;

    I think that the climate is probably cooling. I think that cooling will make life much less pleasant than a similar amount of warming. That is my position.

    What is causing this cooling?

    If your answer is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere… then does that mean you support such things as emission trading?

    If CO2 has no effect… what is causing the cooling? Sun spots?

    Cheers

    1. >What is causing this cooling?

      >If your answer is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere… then does that mean you support such things as emission trading?

      No and no.

      >If CO2 has no effect… what is causing the cooling? Sun spots?

      There are numerous influences on climate:
      Movement of the continents affecting deep ocean currents.
      Milankovich effects.
      Solar cycles.
      Volcanic activity, terrestrial and marine.
      Changing geomagnetic field.
      Changing flux of charged particles originating both inside and outside this solar system.
      I suspect that changing solar activity is the principle cause of climate change within the last few hundred years.

        1. “So you’re saying CO2 has no effect on temperature what so ever?”

          Until I write those words you may assume that I have not said them.

          There is a theoretical case for carbon dioxide contributing to warming. Since the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is miniscule and the effect is logarithmic the effect is also miniscule and is masked by the much greater effect of water vapour.

          1. I may, may I?

            Thank you – how kind. 🙂

            May I also paraphrase?

            miniscule x minscule + masked by vapour = negligible

            Are you’re saying that CO2, if it has any effect at all (TBD), has such a small effect that one can basically ignore it in any attempt to understand climate variation?

            Again – just wanting to clearly understand your position on this issue, and I don’t think you’ve yet been sufficiently clear (or perhaps I’m just stupid… but I trust you prefer stupid questions over ideological assumptions).

            Cheers

            1. >May I also paraphrase?

              You will anyway, somehow, in some feeble attempt at distortion.

              >miniscule x minscule + masked by vapour = negligible

              Yes.

              >Are you’re saying that CO2, if it has any effect at all (TBD), has such a small effect that one can basically ignore it in any attempt to understand climate variation?

              Until you have got all the other matters sorted out, yes.

              Again – just wanting to clearly understand your position on this issue, and I don’t think you’ve yet been sufficiently clear (or perhaps I’m just stupid…

              Probably so. Most of your mates seem to be.

              but I trust you prefer stupid questions over ideological assumptions).

              In your case it is hard to distinguish between the two.

            2. Ok – you’ve clearly lost your sense of perspective.

              Where did I distort? It was an honest attempt to understand what you’ve said – and could harldy have been a distortion when you then agree with my paraphrasing.

              You then dip into adhom’s… great way to win friends and influence people. I’m attempting to understand this issue, and (despite your rudeness) remain open minded.

              Regardless of your lack of manners, you are confirming that, in your opinion, including CO2 is the very last, nth degree refinement one could make to a climate model as it pays a vanishingly small role in influencing (up or down) global temperatures.

              That explains a great deal of the arguments you make. Good to be consistent eh?

              Hugs and Kisses.

  26. “There are three types of photosynthesis: C3, C4 and CAM. C3 photosynthesis occurs in woody, round-leafed plants, which are 95% of all plants. C4 and CAM photosynthesis is found in drier, hotter land plants, grasses, sedges, grains, with CAM in cacti and bromeliads. It is a more efficient, process with the first intermediary compound including four carbon atoms where the “round leaves” start with three, hence the “C3″ and “C4″ labels.”

    CAM is an abbreviation of Crassulacean Acid Metabolism. I first heard of that in Botany lectures in the early 1960s. I wonder how many of you lot had been born then. I wonder too how many of you, prior to grubbing around in Wikipedia after reading this comment, would recognise a single representative of that rather restricted family of plants.

    But why should you? I am told that there is now only one university teaching botany now in line with the tendency to bundle both zoology and botany into biology departments which teach neither and to bundle geology into earth science departments which teach feminist geography!

    It is reasonable to suppose that C4 metabolism arose in response to low levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

  27. “Authority upholds complaint against TVNZ
    Wednesday, 7 October 2009, 11:33 am
    Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

    The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

    7 October 2009
    For Immediate Release

    Broadcasting authority upholds Coalition complaint against TVNZ programme

    A complaint against Television New Zealand Ltd by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition about the inaccuracy an item broadcast by TV One’s “Sunday” programme on 3 May 2009 has been upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Authority in a recent decision. The BSA found the item breached Standard 5 of the Free-to-Air Television Code of Broadcasting Practice. In a note to its decision, BSA said it “hopes that this decision will serve as a reminder that global warming is a particularly complex subject that requires careful treatment by broadcasters.” “

    1. In fact it seems that the only part that was upheld was about flooding of Takuu.
      http://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/2009/2009-063.html

      All other complaints were not upheld.

      (This Roger is what we do when we post material from other sources, I wouldn’t want to lie and pretend I had written this now would I).
      [begin quote]
      Authority’s Determination
      Standard 4 (balance)
      [69] Accordingly, the Authority does not uphold the complaint that the programme breached Standard 4 (balance).

      Standard 5 (accuracy)
      Ship shown in the item was not stranded due to global warming
      [78] …Accordingly, the Authority declines to uphold this aspect of Mr Butler’s complaint.
      Melting sea ice in the Arctic
      [80] …The Authority does not have sufficient evidence, nor is it the appropriate body, to determine whether global warming is responsible for melting sea ice in the Arctic. In these circumstances, the Authority declines to determine this part of the complaint under section 11(b) of the Broadcasting Act.
      Statement that ten ice shelves have broken off the Antarctic Peninsula
      [82] …It therefore declines to uphold this part of the accuracy complaint.
      Statement that the planet is warming when in fact the temperature has not increased since 2002.
      [88] The Authority therefore finds that these aspects of the programme did not breach Standard 5, and it declines to uphold this part of the complaints.
      Statement in the programme that recent Australia bush fires were caused by high levels of CO2.
      [92] Accordingly, the Authority declines to uphold the complaints that these aspects of the programme were inaccurate in breach of Standard 5.
      Statement in the item that farmers are the greatest polluters in New Zealand
      [97] … It declines to uphold this part of Mr Prior’s complaint.
      [end quote]

      1. I am curious, having glanced over this judgement, as to how the BSA can justify upholding this complaint on an accuracy issue, when it declined to do that with the complaints against TGGWS (judgement here). Looks suspiciously like double standards to me… (though I have not (yet) had time to read both judgements with sufficient care to be sure).

  28. CTG October 7, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    > Hmm, Roger, perhaps you could give us some references to some science that is not funded by Big Oil?

    Perhaps you could give us some references to AGW which are not written by those whose jobs are dependent on it.

  29. Now, Roger dahling, you write such a pejorative touch.
    Are you so in the dark ages that it should make any difference one way or any combination of any other ways?
    Shame on you.
    You should be spanked.

  30. >Where did I distort? It was an honest attempt to understand what you’ve said – and could harldy have been a distortion when you then agree with my paraphrasing.

    Perhaps I thought that you could have tried a bit harder.

    >You then dip into adhom’s… great way to win friends and influence people.

    In this forum? Pigs might fly.

    >I’m attempting to understand this issue, and (despite your rudeness) remain open minded.

    Good god. What can I say?

    >Regardless of your lack of manners, you are confirming that, in your opinion, including CO2 is the very last, nth degree refinement one could make to a climate model as it pays a vanishingly small role in influencing (up or down) global temperatures.

    More or less, yes.

    >That explains a great deal of the arguments you make. Good to be consistent eh?

    Of course; one must be consistent. It is difficult sometimes when every bozo attempts to distort whatever one has said or written.

    >Hugs and Kisses.

    Not another Mackie please! Have a wander around Gore Street or Karangahape Road.

  31. Sorry, but you seem to have assumed I’m male, just as you seem to have assumed my position on this issue.

    I may not have been blessed with your obvious intellect or cursed with your lack of grace, but am trying to make up my own mind on this issue, and appreciate (eventually) arriving at an understanding on your views on the (un)importance of CO2.

    ttfn.

  32. >Sorry, but you seem to have assumed I’m male,

    I suppose that I did. Was I wrong?

    >just as you seem to have assumed my position on this issue.

    I suppose that I did that too.

    >I may not have been blessed with your obvious intellect or cursed with your lack of grace, but am trying to make up my own mind on this issue, and appreciate (eventually) arriving at an understanding on your views on the (un)importance of CO2.

    By and large people come to this blog with pretty fixed views. Occasionally, it appears, there is an exception.

    However I hope that I have clarified my views sufficiently. I might add however that I think that global cooling is a far more serious concern. If and when we get a better explanation of the climate changes of the last two or three million years we may be in a position to get a better grasp of what is happening now. I do not think we should be throwing taxpayers’ money on supposed solutions to a problem which may not exist. I do not believe in spending money on anything other that completely neutral research and on solutions which include a complete cost-benefit-risk analysis. At the moment I see nothing but research by individuals and organizations whose existence depends on the promotion of AGW and a complete absence of cost-benefit-risk analysis by people who are not feeding at the public trough.

    As for the hugs and kisses, just send me a pic and I will tell you, politely too! As long as you do not look the least bit like Mackie.

    1. “By and large people come to this blog with pretty fixed views. Occasionally, it appears, there is an exception.”

      A very valid criticism there, Mr Kettle…

    2. “At the moment I see nothing but research by individuals and organizations whose existence depends on the promotion of AGW and a complete absence of cost-benefit-risk analysis by people who are not feeding at the public trough.”

      Trouble is both sides of the debate are dominated by vested interests (Although I’d say the denialists have more to lose by being proved wrong), but how could a ‘cost-benefit-risk analysis’ be performed in such an uncertain situation? The terms of reference will always be grossly skewed by whoever is doing it.

      Good luck finding someone “neutral” on this issue.

      The IPCC currently represents the most rigorous scientific investigation and the best understanding of the issue. I trust them more than you, sorry. You seem like your views are fixed in denial-at-all-costs mode.

      1. >(Although I’d say the denialists have more to lose by being proved wrong),

        It would be more polite to call them sceptics. There are few if any of them make their living from their sceptic views. It may be fashionable to accuse them of taking money from “big oil” but that does not wash. “Big oil” puts money into wind farms and the like and profits either way. It is fashionable also to have a shot at Ian Plimer though he is a geologist who has spent his working life with base metals and gold, mainly in southern NSW. As far as I know he has never had anything to do with coal or oil. Doubtless he has been paid by companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto to advise them on where to look next but none of that shows that he has any financial interest in promoting a sceptical view of AGW.

        >but how could a ‘cost-benefit-risk analysis’ be performed in such an uncertain situation?

        Exactly so. In those circumstances the sensible thing is to do nothing because the probability of doing the right thing is very small.

        >Good luck finding someone “neutral” on this issue.

        Just look for people who are not being paid for pushing one point of view or whose jobs depend on it.

        >The IPCC currently represents the most rigorous scientific investigation and the best understanding of the issue.

        It does not. The stuff published by the IPCC is collated by bureaucrats and deviated considerably from the technical reports on which it is supposed to be based. Some of the scientists have even resigned because their work has been misrepresented and at least one had to sue the IPCC to get his name removed from the list of scientists said to have had contributed to the report.

        >I trust them more than you, sorry.

        If you trust data fiddlers such as Mann and Briffa you are to be pitied.

        >You seem like your views are fixed in denial-at-all-costs mode.

        So you think. At least my views have some basis in work history. Yours, I think, are founded in propaganda.

        1. “If you trust data fiddlers such as Mann and Briffa you are to be pitied.”

          You might want to think twice before repeating that libel, Roger – even McIntyre has backtracked on that now.

        2. “Exactly so. In those circumstances the sensible thing is to do nothing because the probability of doing the right thing is very small.”

          Pouring increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is not “doing nothing”. It’s clear doing nothing is not an option since the world is going to keep turning. Let’s imagine you are open minded about climate change (this might be stretching the limits of imagination) and at some point the evidence reaches a level that satisfies you of its likelihood. There will still be uncertainty, so would you still claim we shouldn’t stop doing the thing that is creating the problem?

          If I did nothing every time I was in a dangerous yet uncertain situation I would be dead many times over.

          “At least my views have some basis in work history.”

          Well my views have a basis in my ability to evaluate information. Your work history does not trump the people whose work history is specifically studying climate. I am more than happy to accept their views over yours.

          1. >Pouring increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is not “doing nothing”. It’s clear doing nothing is not an option since the world is going to keep turning.

            >Let’s imagine you are open minded about climate change (this might be stretching the limits of imagination) and at some point the evidence reaches a level that satisfies you of its likelihood.

            Let us imagine that you have a cerebral ganglion. That is indeed generous.

            >There will still be uncertainty, so would you still claim we shouldn’t stop doing the thing that is creating the problem?

            Just put your two brain cells to work sonny and balance the costs multiplied by the probabilities for each option.

            “Well my views have a basis in my ability to evaluate information. Your work history does not trump the people whose work history is specifically studying climate. I am more than happy to accept their views over yours.”

            And what have you contributed to anything at all except the taxpayers’ debt? Your ability indeed! Is there any evidence of that? Has anybody, other than the long suffering taxpayer paid you a cent, except perhaps on Boy Scouts Day? Or should it be the Girl Guides Day?

            1. Just put your two brain cells to work sonny and balance the costs multiplied by the probabilities for each option.

              Exercise for the reader: low probablity but high impact events have to be taken into account in any risk assessment. If there is a small but real risk of the deaths of billions of people, what price is worth paying to ensure it doesn’t happen? Then read about the costs of action as outlined in Bryan’s recent post. A very small price to pay for insurance against disaster I would suggest…
              Roger: your braincells would be better employed reviewing the evidence rather than spouting your ill-informed preconceptions.

            2. thanks for the insults, Roger. Nice to see you won’t let your ignorance stop you from making blatant assumptions or being rude just for the sake of it.

              I am a taxpayer and I run my own business.

              You were a bit busy insulting me to actually respond to my arguments it seems.

  33. Dear me Roger, perhaps we have already been corresponding for years via that online group and didn’t realise it. Are you “bigbuttonflaps72”?

  34. Ahh. Then you must be “dribblyoldfool”. I should have realised. Shall I put you in touch with bigbuttonflaps? You have so much in common.

    [Doug: Ridicule his understanding of the science, by all means, but can we leave the innuendo (however amusing) to other places? Ta. GR]

  35. I suppose that it amuses him and perhaps it amuses you but he is as wet as five year old. It does not reflect very well on his university. When you couple this with his out of the gutter comments at the time of Augie Auer’s death one must be forced to wonder how deep in the barrel they had to dig to find him.

  36. Well, for the record Roger, here is my comment – in its entirety – on Aguie Auer’s death, posted011 June 2007 to the Stuff website amongst the hagiographic flood:

    “I regret I’ll never get the chance to say “We told you so” in a few years when even the most stubborn have come to accept the reality of Climate Change.”

    I stand by that comment and I am happy to repeat it.

      1. Sounds to me a bit like you overreacted to something you imagined you read. No matter, just carry on as if what you think is how things really are…

  37. And that Roger is the problem.
    You have misremembered something and worked it up in your mind to something other than what was actually said. (Out of character – as it is, I believe, the first time you have done something like that).

    I would be happy to forward the original email, complete with all headers for you to check but you may be assured that that is the entire comment I made. And I stand by it.

    Having said that, you do understand that NZ libel laws apply to the living and not to the dead don’t you? It might please some people (not me, of course) to be more candid in their opinions now.

  39. Yes, libel seems to be the tactic of the day for you deniers. First we have McIntyre and McKitrick libelling Briffa, now we have all and sundry libelling Latif. You see, Latif never actually said that “we are about to enter a decade of cooling”, in fact the only way in which he differs from the IPCC is that he thinks the warming is going to be even greater than the IPCC maximum.

    The whole Latif thing comes down to some sloppy reporting by Fred Pearce of New Scientist, who turned Latif’s actual comment (“within a long term warming trend, it is possible that you can get a decade or two of cooling”) into “we could be about to enter a decade or two of cooling” (note could be). Coincidentally, my wife used to be an editor on New Scientist, and she says that this is fairly typical of Fred – sloppiness, rather than outright intent to deceive. In this case it looks like Marc Morano and others then turned this into the outright “we are about to…” that then gets reported by the BBC and others.

    So there you have it, the deniers have moved on from mere lies and misinformation, to outright libel in their attempt to derail Copenhagen. Expect more of the same in the coming weeks.

    1. “I don’t believe in Global Warming”

      You see, that’s your problem right there, Roger. It’s not about belief, it’s about scientific evidence. You and your cronies are the ones who want to turn it into an opinion poll, for the simple reason that you do not have any scientific evidence to back up your case.

      If you did, you lot wouldn’t need to resort to all the lies and distortions you regularly band about.

      1. Who started the”consensus” nonsense?

        There is plenty of evidence but you will not see it while your head is firmly buried where sun does not shine.

  42. Wellington readers might be interested in the following public talk, on at Vic tonight from 5:10-6pm:

    VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON
    SCHOOL OF GEOGRAPHY, ENVIRONMENT AND EARTH SCIENCES
    2009 Annual Wellman Lecture
    Open to the Public
    (sponsored by VUW Student Geology Society)

    Can we better communicate the issues surrounding climate change?
    Philip Boyd
    NIWA Centre of Chemical and Physical Oceanography Department of Chemistry, University of Otago

    Monday 12 October 2009 at 5:10 to 6:00 pm Cotton Building Lecture Theatre 122, Victoria University

    The public is welcome to this open lecture, which takes place in the Introductory Geology course. Wellington is a centre of excellence in the wider Earth Sciences, and the Wellman Lecture is one way to encourage interest and broaden understanding in a chosen topic.

    There is no doubt that climate change and its environmental, socio-economic, and geopolitical consequences will be a major pre-occupation in the coming decades. Already we have seen how misinformation fed by lobby groups and presented by climate sceptics has delayed acceptance of, and consequent action on, climate change. The scientific community must now take on several roles, ranging from the detection and attribution of climate change effects on the environment to widespread and clear communication of the ramifications, nuances and complexities of such effects. Although the former role is one that scientists will be accustomed to, the latter will be a major challenge that will require the community to move out of their ‘comfort zone’. In this lecture, I will illustrate these points using my research interests in Earth system science, geoengineering, and the modelling of climate change and variability. I hope I can convince you that better communication of the issues by scientists can readily be achieved in the coming years.

    1. “The public is welcome to this open lecture, which takes place in the Introductory Geology course. Wellington is a centre of excellence in the wider Earth Sciences, and the Wellman Lecture is one way to encourage interest and broaden understanding in a chosen topic.”

      Anything but a center of excellence these days. Lectures in feminist geography!!!!!!!!! Harold Wellman will be turning in his grave to have his reputation sullied by such politically correct rubbish.

    1. Yes.

      However I have some experience in the real world. You may have been to lots of lectures but then you have no experience in the real world! That is it darling. Go back to cooking and knitting.

    1. You are so easy to wind up!

      FEEDING FROM THE TROUGH

      “For example, the “Carbon Market Expo” to be held on the Gold Coast in
      October 2009 boasts that “more than 70 businesses will exhibit at the expo”.
      They include bankers, brokers, carbon asset managers, carbon investment
      managers, carbon accounting firms, carbon management firms, carbon
      consultants and auditors, carbon control consultants, emissions trading
      forums, carbon rewards groups, tree technology consultants, green fleet
      firms, carbon credit offset suppliers, carbon forest service companies,
      carbon certifiers and verifiers, carbon registries, carbon market
      infrastructure providers, recruitment firms, R&D advisers, PR firms,
      engineering contractors, University academics, carbon market advisers and of
      course all the federal, state and even local “climate smart” bureaucracies
      and their well travelled staff. ”

      “Despite their totally mercenary aims, this large group of city business
      interests will talk reverently of their visions of Carbonia. This is a
      mystic land where only green carbon is permitted to exist; where nymphs and
      gnomes skip through sylvan forest of indigenous vegetation; where gentle
      breezes and warm rain are never disturbed by snow storms or heat waves;
      where floods, droughts and bushfires are unknown; and where a planned carbon
      depression has ensured there are no nasty farms, factories, mines or motor
      engines. “

    2. Equal opportunity patronising sexist old gits like me would give Jennifer Marohasy her chance. It is you, the watermelons, who will not! Can you knit? I bet you cannot. As for your cooking, all tofu and carrot I suppose. Oh for a woman who can cook roast beef and yorkshire pudding one day and a curry that cauterises the piles next day.

      [Roger: Can you save the sexist nonsense for some other place, please? This thread is supposed to be about climate issues. GR]

  46. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BBC?
    ————————-

    This is a bit like the Catholic church questioning the existence of god, so it is pretty big news. The über-alarmist BBC has been at the forefront of climate hysteria for many years, but suddenly it appears to have woken up and smelt the reality.
    –Australian Climate Madness, 11 October 2009

    The BBC’s most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that “the science is settled”, when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn’t. But it is effectively BBC policy that those views should not be heard.
    –Peter Sissons, veteran BBC newsreader, Daily Mail, 12 July 2009

    One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say its hotting up.
    –Paul Hudson, BBC News, 10 October 2009

    We have always reported a range of views and this article is no different. The point the article is making is that views about climate change are hotly contested. To characterise this as some sort of change in position is simply wrong.
    –BBC Statement, 12 October 2009

    After years of commentators and activists cherry-picking data and misrepresenting the science we should be thankful that mother nature herself has come to the rescue, forcing a realistic debate about what is going on and showing that what is happening cannot be described by any simple slogan or ‘settled’ science.
    –David Whitehouse, CCNet, 12 October 2009

    The BBC now has serious questions to answer. It has used millions of pounds of licence-payers’ money to advance a simplistic point of view that is beginning to fall apart under scrutiny. Did it not foresee that this might happen? And, now that statistics are beginning to point in the other direction, is it prepared to give equal prominence to a debate about climate change that is both respectable and urgent?
    –Damian Thompson, The Daily Telegraph, 11 October 2009

    Even the BBC admits that for the last decade, there has been no global warming, man-made or otherwise. Attempts by the liberal media to salvage its last shreds of credibility by admitting to the cooler weather we can all observe for ourselves won’t prevent villainous politicians from looting us and destroying our standard of living. But they are going to have to do it without hiding behind the environmental fig leaf.
    –Van Helsing, Moonbattery, 11 October 2009

    A day after the European Union (EU) sought to join the US to scupper the paradigm for emission control defined under the Kyoto Protocol, India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh became probably the first politician to signal that a deal in December at Copenhagen was unlikely and that it would require another meeting “next summer”. The Indian environment minister did not mince words when he said that the “negotiations have broken down” and that the reversal had “cast a long shadow” on climate change talks.
    –Anil Padmanabhan, Livemint, 12 October 2009

  47. How much more stable or cooling climate before the politicians turn on the climate shroudwavers like a pack of angry rotweilers? Three years? Five?

    1. Now, I know you are not interested in actual science, Roger, but this question has been asked and answered many times before. The temperature record shows considerable annual variance, and you need to look at trends of 20-30 years before the long-term trends outweigh short-term interannual variability. See here for details.

      Given that the latest 20-year trends still show strong warming, I think it would have to cool consistently for the next 20 years before you could say that the climate was cooling.

      And when I say “cool consistently”, I mean actually getting colder, instead of your kind of cooling where it actually gets hotter.

      Sorry, was that not the answer you wanted to hear?

      1. CTG
        From memeory Tamino concluded that given the amount of natural varability that you would start questioning an increasing trend after 17 years of declining temperatures. Of course that does not mean that the temperature decline is happening as there are still statistical outliers, but at that point you are going outside what you would expect at 95% confidence interval and you would really start questioning the assumption of increasing temperature.

        Cheers Doug

    2. On the other hand, when the next few years get even warmer, how long do you think it will be before the people turn on the climate denialists like a pack of angry rottweilers?

      Once people realise that we could have done something about AGW if it hadn’t been for your lies and obfuscations, do you think you will get off scot-free?

      1. When it is as obvious as the proverbial dogs’ testicles that it is actually getting cooler you lot will be claiming that it was the temperature rise forced by carbon dioxide that is now driving us into the next ice age. You lot want to bet on both heads and tails at the same time.

        1. I’m not a juvenile at all, you old fool – probably not much younger than you – but my faculties are all intact.

          We should all be thankful that you represent the calibre of the opposition here. I know of at least a couple of Fraudit-quoting denialists who are too smart to appear here – they know they’d get shredded. They confine their remarks to political forums, knowing that most of their readership knows nothing at all about climate issues.

          So keep it up old boy – you’re doing your own cause immense harm.

          1. You and the rest are pompous beyond all belief. It is so much fun taking the piss out of you. Your faculties are far from intact. They are like bottle dropped from a great height onto concrete. I suppose you voted for Helen Clark too?

            Who do you suppose reads your rubbish? Readers of Frogblog perhaps but who else but some who will take the mickey of you? You are a joke, albeit a bad one.

  48. Roger, not a good look for the probity of the denialists.

    We began with the paternalism? racism? (what would you call it Roger) of NZC”S”C with “The only evidence of significant warming comes from mainly non-western stations that are probably ill maintained” (subsequently slickly edited by Chris de Freitas to be less offensive).

    And have moved on to homophobia and sexism in this thread. Ever the voice of inclusive rationalism. Whatever is left?

    Oh I know! Here is a novel tactic for denialists and I gift it to you for free. How about you go back to the start again and try repeating the same old lies? No one will ever expect that.

    1. “And have moved on to homophobia and sexism in this thread. Ever the voice of inclusive rationalism. Whatever is left? ”

      Carbon dioxide, methane, the consensus, big oil, coal, denialists, deniers, Belsen (because I have forgotten how to spell the other with beginning with A (never having been a Kraut fancier [now there is another one for you to get your knickers in a twist about]).

      Inclusive rationalism? Does that include handing the country over to the ragheads? There is another one for you to squeal over.

      When you lot use a lecture theater named after Harold Wellman, who I knew well, to promote your AGW nonsense I am sickened. HW will be spinning in his grave if he knows what the VUW Geology department, once the best in the country, has metamorphosed into. AGW, lawyers’ rorts and feminist geography indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        1. No. You will have to be smarter than that. How on earth did you get your job?

          Auschwitz actually, but I did need two goes at it. Have you not heard of Belsen? Would not any normally educated person given the letter “A” and Belsen as the key word think of Auschwitz? Perhaps you have got carbon dioxide hanging out of every bodily orifice and it has constipated your brain a little bit.

          1. Heh, reminds me of those skits from “The Fast Show”, a babbling stream of nonsense with some sentence pieces and shrill terms, then at the end,

            “…I’m afraid I was very, very drunk.”

  49. Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated nonbelievers from their panels. In the name of science, disciples made it a virtue to not recognize the existence of scientists such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen and Colorado State University’s William Gray. For a long time, that approach worked. But after 11 years without record temperatures that had the seas spilling over the Statue of Liberty’s toes, they are going to have to change tactics. They’re going to have to rely on real data, not failed models and scare stories, and the Big Lie that everyone who counts agrees with them.
    –Debra J. Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 October 2009

    1. “11 years without record temperatures”?

      Why do you denialists need to lie all the time? 2005 and 2007 were both warmer than 1998. The 2000s decade is the warmest on record.

      If you stopped lying, then maybe people would listen to you, Roger, but as it is, you are losing whatever credibility you had daily.

  51. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/09/lawrence-solomon-global-blushing.aspx

    By Lawrence Solomon

    It’s hard to be green when you’re red-faced all the time. It’s easy to be red-faced when your cause is global warming doomsterism.

    This week, the doomsters were embarrassed to learn, once again, that the planet was not in grave peril. Antarctica, their greatest candidate for catastrophe, was not melting at an ever-faster rate, according to a report in Geophysical Research Letters, but at the slowest rate in 30 years.

    [Roger: Just an excerpt and link please, not the complete load of tosh.

    For your info: Solomon is wrong about that GRL paper. It talks about snow melt, not mass loss – which is certainly increasing at both ends of the planet. GR]

    1. You don’t have to be qualified, you just need to be able to read. We post links, you cry foul that we’re suggesting you read something, you post more rubbish. And so on it goes, ad nauseum. What more rubbish will come next?

      1. Has it occurred to, but I suppose that it has not, that you are just regurgitating the stuff put out by your mentors? Try thinking for yourself.

        R

        1. In that case, Roger, can we have some original thought from you please? Not just the latest link from Benny Peiser or the climate sceptics newsgroup, but something you’ve thought about and investigated yourself?

  54. Ohh. Hey everybody look at Roger. Look at Roger.
    No fair ignoring him. This is his thread and he can behave how he likes.
    Nobody else has ever had their own thread. That just shows how special he is. So: Look at Roger. Look at Roger.

  55. Why not indeed. There are more of you looking at my rants than looking at Gareth’s rants. That is why he is getting grumpy. He really pissed on his own feet and now he knows it!

    R

    1. Why not indeed. There are more of you looking at my rants than looking at Gareth’s rants.

      That because we like you Rog, you’re our pet plonker and we wouldn’t want you wandering off to some other less superior blog. Besides, you’re so pretty to watch.

      1. Like a pimple, you just cannot stop scratching, can you?

        How about my post on the IPCC? Have a scratch, or do you want to leave that to Gareth your guru?

  56. 1. The IPCC’s temperature data (HadCRUT3v) has never been independently audited

    2. The IPCC shows (table 2.11) that the level of scientific understanding of 13 of the 16 listed climate forcings is below “medium”.

    3. That table omits ENSO forcings (and elsewhere the IPCC says that the limit of ENSO prediction and modelling is about 12 months) and it omits solar forces other than irradiance.

    4. It follows from table 2.11 and the above omissions that the accurate
    modelling of natural climate forces is impossible, which means that the
    claim that natural forces alone cannot account for temperature variation is without merit

    5. The IPCC’s only other evidence is that temperature have risen but in itself this is no proof any cause.

    6. The IPCC’s primary claims were written by a group of climate modellers of which more than 40 were in a network of people who had worked together in the past. (This is in contravention of the IPCC documented procedures that require diversity.)

    A little incestuous perhaps?

    1. 1. By “independently”, you mean “by anyone who disputes the AGW consensus”, ie well-read scientists don’t count, right?

      2&4. It does not follow, that is your interpretation and inference from the word “medium”

      3. Back on the cosmic ray theory again huh. Is the understanding of such forces, “medium”? Or is that who you got your advice from?

      5. No Roger, that’s not the only evidence.

      6. The whole “it’s all a vast scientific conspiracy” thing again huh. Your tin-hat could use a little polish.

        1. Hah, left myself wide open for that. Perhaps “a 9 minute montage of strawmen arguments” is better. It perhaps makes a partially valid point that many things are attributed to climate change by the media, and these are not always established.

          But then it scores own goals by failing to distinguish between scientific and tinhat. In the second minute it presents a paper on the earth exploding as it it were from a real scientific journal. It sure looks like a real scientific paper – I mean, they did it in LaTeX and everything – but somehow I think the “NU Journal of Discovery” lacks some scientific credibility compared to say Nature.

    1. Seems to be a pretty good description of you, Roger:

      The common factors in these campaigns of zealotry are:
      * Creation and maintenance of a myth
      * Ignoring all evidence countering the myth
      * Ad hominem attacks on opponents

      Yup, those are your tactics, all right.

  61. “That is why McIntyre is wasting his time trying to “break” the hockey stick. Even if it were proved that the MWP was as warm as today, that would not mean that CO2 is not the cause of today’s warming, unless he could also come up with a mechanism that explains both the MWP and today’s warming without CO2. No one on the denialist side has been able to do this. ”

    No. The onus is on you. The MWP was only 1000 years ago. When you can explain the climate changes of the last 2 million years, incorporating the effects of carbon dioxide, you might have half a case. Until then you have nothing except models that fail to predict. Now piss or get off the pot.

    1. When you can explain the climate changes of the last 2 million years, incorporating the effects of carbon dioxide, you might have half a case.

      You have that exactly the wrong way round. To convince us that no action is needed, you have to explain the climate of the last few million years without invoking the radiative properties of CO2.

      We’ll wait, shall we?

          1. 1) Land surface temperatures take into account only 29 percent of the Earth’s surface

            2) The Arctic sea ice extent record referred to goes back to 1979 only. It’s mainly a function of ocean currents and wind, as well ocean water temperature and cloud cover.

            3) Antarctic sea ice is up.

            4) “Worldwide ocean temperature” is a function of ocean water upwelling and down welling (currents and winds).

            5) So what?

            6) My tin hat? Actually it would have been a smart move to wrap my hat in alfoil on one occasion in the NT when I ran out of water and had to make a detour around a large feral bull! The pilot of the chopper might have seen me sooner.

            If only you bozos could see the real world.

            1. Ok well those numbered points look like they’re replies to my numbered replies… but there isn’t any real coherence between the replies and your ‘rebuttals’ – so you fail again, sorry.

  62. RW October 15, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    ” I knew George when he was at school – and he made more sense then than he does now.”

    Perhaps it is what you have between your ears that has deteriorated, not that of Garth George?

  63. “But of the 800 words in Garth’s column, 37.5% were written by Viv Forbes. I wonder if Garth is forwarding a share of his cheque?

    Have you contacted his editor? Plagarism is a serious business, especially for journos, and George is old enough and ugly enough to know better.”

    I am sure that Viv Forbes will be clapping his hands. I knew him in about 1968!

  64. “The dust storm that started the previous day had intensified by the time the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over on October 14, 2009. What had been a semi-translucent cloud of dust became a broad front of thick airborne dust. This dense cloud of dust straddles the New South Wales and Queensland border. The bulk of the dust hangs over the South Pacific Ocean, leaving the air over land relatively clear. The large image, which encompasses a wider area, shows that the dust plume stretches tens of kilometers south of the area shown here.”

    Just how much carbon did the microflora use up in using all this free fertilizer? Stick this one in your models.

  66. As you say, nothing is simple, particularly the relationship between CO2 and temperature.

    Is dust included in the models? How about loess? I doubt that anyone has thought of including that, or if they did they found it too difficult.

  68. The growth of British trees appears to follow a cosmic pattern, with trees growing faster when high levels of cosmic radiation arrive from space. Researchers made the discovery studying how growth rings of spruce trees have varied over the past half a century. As yet, they cannot explain the pattern, but variation in cosmic rays impacted tree growth more than changes in temperature or precipitation.
    –Matt Walker, BBC News, 19 October 2009

    The relation of the rings to the solar cycle was much stronger than to any climatological factors. As for the mechanism, we are puzzled.
    –Sigrid Dengel, University of Edinburgh, 19 October 2009

    A sense of panic is setting in among many campaigners for drastic cuts in global carbon emissions. It is becoming obvious that the highly trumpeted meeting set for Copenhagen this December will not deliver a binding international treaty that will make a significant difference to global warming.
    –Bjorn Lomborg, 17 October 2009

    Now something else:
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6879251.ece

  69. “The last two IPCC Reports made a big thing of ocean heating. The methods used showed considerable variability, The average showed periodicity, with troughs in 1965 and 1986 and peaks in 1980 and 2005. but the temperature increase from the 1965 trough to the later peak of 2005 was confidently attributed to “global warming” caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

    At least, that was the story in the first two drafts of the 2007 Report. Then the people measuring temperature provided the disturbing news that the 2005 figure actually showed a fall in temperature, and they had to put that into their final Report.

    Then there was overwhelming pressure on the scientists to backtrack on such a disturbing observation, and , loyally, they discovered a “rogue” unreliable sensor
    which restored the IPCC “confidence” that the ocean temperature is rising.

    So they increased their coverage with a new sophisticated system called ARGO which has 3,000 probes. The results are disastrous, and they have yet to admit it. They are given in the following paper

    K von Schukmann, F Galliland, and P Y Le Traon 2009 Geophysical Research Letters Vol 11124.09007. doi:1029/2008JC005237 “Global hygrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008”

    To start with, the average temperature is falling. But what is worse. the variability is so great that it could not possibly be heated from the atmosphere. So it must be heated from below, from all the underwater volcanoes and plate movements that have so far been neglected. I attach the record for the Pacific basin which includes the variability of salinity,

    This all comes on top of the paper by Douglass and Knox at

    Douglass, D.H. and R. Knox, 2009: Physics letters A. Volume 373, Issue 36, 31 August 2009, Pages 3296-3300 “Changes in Net Flow of Ocean Heat Correlate with Past Climate Anomalies”
    The abstract reads

    “Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960- mid 1970s (?0.15), mid-1970s-2000 (+0.15), 2001-present (?0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.”

    The summary reads

    “We determine Earth’s radiation imbalance by analyzing three recent independent observational ocean heat content determinations for the period 1950 to 2008 and compare the results with direct measurements by satellites. A large annual term is found in both the implied radiation imbalance and the direct measurements. Its magnitude and phase confirm earlier observations that delivery of the energy to the ocean is rapid, thus eliminating the possibility of long time constants associated with the bulk of the heat transferred.

    Longer-term averages of the observed imbalance are not only many-fold smaller than theoretically derived values, but also oscillate in sign. These facts are not found among the theoretical predictions.

    Three distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative imbalance are found: 1960 to the mid 1970s, the mid 1970s to 2000 and 2001 to present. The respective mean values of radiation imbalance are ?0.15, +0.15, and ?0.2 to ?0.3. These observations are consistent with the occurrence of climate shifts at 1960, the mid-1970s, and early 2001 identified by Swanson and Tsonis.

    Knowledge of the complex atmospheric-ocean physical processes is not involved or required in making these findings. Global surface temperatures as a function of time are also not required to be known.”

    The periodicity found coincides with the behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and as the heating is from below, this heating is related to the PDOmust also behave in a periodic fashion.

    The finding that the earth’s energy is not balanced shows that the fundamenmtal assumption of all the computer climate models that it IS balanced is incorrect, and means that all the models are wrong.”

    Oh dear! Back to the drawing board?

    1. Climategate3.0 will be a bigger flop than 2.0 was.

      Phil Jones will probably be discovered to have split many infinitives and misspelled ‘stochastic’. Aha! Pathetic fragments will be hysterically whipped up into ‘smoking guns’ via the worst-faith exercise imaginable – in a reversion to Medievalism comparable to the anti-windfarm hysteria – by the genuine rabble-rousers such as Nova, Monckton and Delingpole.

      But that lot’s perpetually in a frenzy anyway!

      Predicted impact on the mainstream media, given that they finally worked out that Climategate 1.0 was itself the hoax, rather than its purported revelations – zero.

      Therefore predicted impact outside the epistemic bubble – zero.

    1. Yes it has; by the kind of people who end sentences like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Thinking people; not so much.

      In fact, the ‘it just isn’t troooooooeeee; leave Britney alone!!!!!!!!!’ reaction has been unintentionally hilarious. ‘Skeptics’ eh? 😉

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