Tag: EV

You know my name (look up the number)

homer.jpg Sometimes it can be difficult to know if someone is a genuine climate crank, sceptic, one of the GODs*, or just a fly-by-night, johnny-come-lately keen to ride on the soon-to-arrive ice age bandwagon. Well, here’s the good news. The International Climate Science Coalition has recently published several lists of people who are happy to endorse the Manhattan Declaration. That’s right, a list of all (or at least most) of the people who agree with this statement:

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

No more worries, no need to agonise. If they’re on the list, they’re guaranteed to be grade A climate cranks. Please dissect at will. What a remarkable public gesture, no doubt funded by the Heartland Institute in the interest of a better tomorrow. Or possibly not.

* Grumpy old deniers (©R McKie 2008)

“The Arctic ice is back to normal.” Yeah, right.


This New Scientist video includes some rather spectacular images of a rapidly draining meltwater lake on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. The three kilometre wide lake drained down through 1 km of ice in an hour and a half, at a rate similar to that of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls. Full story here, and more detail from NASA here. Meanwhile, RealClimate covers the factors driving the acceleration of Greenland’s outlet glaciers, the principle mechanism for getting large volumes of ice into the ocean. There’s some interesting stuff in the comments, too, particularly from a scientist (Tad Pfeiffer) working on establishing an upper limit to the contribution to global sea level rise likely from Greenland’s glaciers. Nature also has a very nice overview article on the state of research on the GIS, but unfortunately it’s hidden away behind a paywall.

Offshore in the high Canadian Arctic, Canadian Rangers have discovered large cracks are appearing in the Ward Hunt ice shelf, a large chunk of very old and thick ice on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. The Arctic sea ice has now begun its spring melt back, and the National Snow & Ice Data Centre has posted a page to monitor this summer’s events. The time series graph of ice extent (here) compares current ice to last year’s record and the 79-2000 average. You can monitor ice area (a slightly different metric) at Cryosphere Today (here).

Down South, more results from the Andrill Project were presented at last week’s European Geophysical Union conference. Researchers now have a climate history for the continent stretching back 17 million years, and there are plans to drill a new core (starting in 2012) to take that back to 40 million years, when the continent started iceing up. Grab the Nature article before it disappears behind a paywall.

Tasman.jpgThis is the Tasman Glacier, near Mt Cook, from the lookout on the lateral moraine a couple of months ago (click for a larger version: pic ©GR). New fieldwork shows that the lake is now 7 km long, 2 km wide and – amazingly – 245 m deep. The results confirm that the presence of the lake effectively dooms the glacier to disappear – within 20 years, according to the research team from Massey University. Herald story here.

Take that, Nigel!

lawson.jpg Nigel(*) Lawson, flown over to NZ by the Business Roundtable last year to mislead us on climate change, has written a book which comprehensively debunks the whole climate alarmist bandwagon. Robin McKie in the Observer is suitably impressed:

What really grates is Lawson’s conviction that most of the world’s climatologists, meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, Arctic experts, and biologists, as well several Nobel Prize winners, are all stupid, misguided and wrong in thinking manmade global warming is real. By contrast, Lawson, ensconced in his Gascogny house, where, incidentally, he found conditions ‘perfectly tolerable’ during the 2005 French heatwave that killed 15,000 old people, is virtually the only one with the brains to work out the Truth.

It is breathtaking arrogance, to say the least, although Lawson is not alone in displaying it. Several other individuals, usually male, elderly, and right wing, still deny climate change is happening, mainly because they cannot stand the thought that greenies may be right and that we will have to curtail our use of big cars, international flights and other carbon-boosting luxuries. These Grumpy Old Deniers feel their lifestyles are threatened by greenies and so reject the entire concept of global warming. ‘With the collapse of Marxism, those who dislike capitalism have been obliged to find a new creed,’ says Lawson. ‘For many of them, green is the new red.’ In short, global warming is a commie plot.

Ring any bells? Don? Bob? Terry? Owen? Bryan? “Grumpy old deniers” has a certain ring to it, does it not?

But McKie’s only just hitting his stride.

If only it was. Then we could have a chance of dealing with it. In fact, the problem is far more pervasive and worrying. So perhaps Lord Lawson should turn his mighty brain to that issue, instead of writing piffle like this – then the Earth really might be saved.

McKie wins the 2008 Hot Topic prize for most heartfelt use of the word “piffle” in global media.

[Update 25/4: Not quite as scathing, but just as interesting, is the Guardian review by Richard Lambert, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (a sort of heavyweight version of Business NZ). In Lawson’s heyday, the CBI regarded Thatcher as a bit wet – now they’re fully committed to action on climate change.]

* I know that’s not Nigel, but I prefer Nigella’s…

…cooking.

The sincerest form of flat earthery

discworld.jpg I can’t resist a small (flat, disc-shaped) chortle. While the great communicator (Prof Bob) was readying himself to address an august audience at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland last Saturday, a bunch of members of the NZ branch of the Flat Earth Society (dressed in clothing from their favourite historical period – the Medieval Warm Period) were handing out leaflets suggesting that the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition might like to join with them to resist the dark forces of rationalism. From the leaflet:

The Flat Earth Society and the Climate Science Coalition (with Bob Carter) have so much in common. While the NZ CSC is relatively new, we at the FES have had centuries of experience in battling against against a mass of overwhelming scientific evidence, and believe may be able to learn from and indeed support each other.

The NZCSC seems to have come to a critical point that appears to be tipping against you – a point where fewer people believe in your position. Believe us, we’ve been there, we know what it’s like.

Don Brash was there.

More on The Listener

Listener.jpg The Listener’s unfortunately timed decision to drop Dave Hansford as its Ecologic columnist is certainly making waves around the blogs, and is now being taken up by the general media. John Drinnan covers the story in the Herald today, and the issue has been commented on at Hard News, No Right Turn, Poneke, and (for balance, of course 😉 ) at Kiwiblog. Meanwhile Hansford has been interviewed for next week’s Media7 programme, and the issue is expected to be covered by Mediawatch on RadioNZ National this weekend. The comments here have been lively too – look for posts by some of the key players – including sceptics.

I’ll bring you more on this story as it develops. In the meantime, I offer you this article from the BBC, which discusses how a responsible media organisation should approach the question of balance in climate coverage. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine how the Listener performs in that context.