Tag: NZ C"S"C

Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted (*)

homer.jpgLast week an essay — Why I Am A Climate Realist — by NZ CSC “science advisor” Dr Willem de Lange started popping up all over the crank web. I first spotted it at Muriel Newman’s NZ CPR site, and it has since appeared at Monckton’s US lair (complete with a pretty cover). De Lange, a senior lecturer in the Dept of Earth & Ocean Sciences at Waikato Unversity, has not had many starring roles as a climate crank — his biggest claim to fame was a place on the panel discussion after Prime’s showing of The Great Global Warming Swindle last year. But this time he has really stuck his neck out, channelling Wishart’s delusions in this sentence:

It is more likely that the warming of the oceans since the Little Ice Age is a major contributor to the observed increase in CO2.

To show just how wrong he is, I asked Doug Mackie, who is a researcher in chemical oceanography at the University of Otago and regular commenter here, to point out the flaws in de Lange’s essay. Over to Doug:

When Gareth invited me to write a guest post about Willem de Lange’s Why I am a climate realist I knew it was going to be hard. Most of the article is wibble and he really only makes 2 serious points:
– About sea level
-The oceans as the main source of CO2.

(*) Katherine Mansfield, The Advanced Lady.
Continue reading “Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted (*)”

A pillow of winds

WindturbineNot content with being one of NZ’s leading climate cranks, energy consultant Bryan Leyland also has views on wind power that are well out of the mainstream. Muriel Newman’s NZ Centre for Policy Research this week gives Bryan a chance to fulminate about the economics of wind energy:

I believe that, given the high cost and operational problems of wind power, no responsible Board of Directors of a state-owned or private company could — or should — agree to “investing” in windpower. There are better and cheaper alternatives.

Is that so? I thought it might be wise to check Bryan’s take on the business, and so I asked Fraser Clark, chief executive of the NZ Wind Energy Association to take a look at his article and give us an idea of what the real situation is. Here is his analysis…

Electricity generation technology and the way electricity systems are managed are continually evolving. Bryan Leyland’s recent think piece, which criticised wind energy as ‘foolish energy’, failed to consider many of the factors that are influencing the development of modern electricity systems.

Broader energy security concerns are driving the global shift to renewable electricity generation. Uncertainty regarding the supply and price of fossil fuels increases the attractiveness of wind energy as it has no fuel cost, no supply risk, and will not be affected by the introduction of a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

Leaving aside security concerns, which I have discussed elsewhere, many of Mr Leyland’s recent assertions about wind energy are irrelevant, alarmist and unsupported by other, more robust analysis.

Continue reading “A pillow of winds”

Hows about telling a story

NZETS.jpgPeter Dunne’s assurance that the ETS Review process won’t turn into a re-examination of climate science is set to run into a few problems. Looking through the full list of submitters who will make oral presentations to the committee (below the fold), I count no fewer than eleven (plus one “possible”) who will or have already argued the crank position — and remarkably, that includes two Hungarian scientists (Miklos Zagoni and Ferenc Miskolczi) who assert that the greenhouse effect doesn’t work the way we think it does, and that global warming is therefore not a problem — even though their views, and “calculations” have been extensively debunked. M&Z are effectively on the furthest reaches of the climate crank fringe, and yet they’ve been invited to give “evidence” to the ETS Review. I wonder who wangled that little feat, and if the chairman realises what he’s got in store?

You can watch Miskolczi and Zagoni in action in Heartland’s 2008 crankfest “proceedings“. Rabett Run and others comprehensively rebutted the Miskolczi paper last year, and even the ever-welcoming Heartland didn’t ask M&Z for a repeat performance this year. So why are they turning up in New Zealand? It appears that Zagoni is in Australia visiting relatives, so perhaps he’s just arranged a holiday for himself and his friend Ferenc to coincide with his submission date (set for May 4th). What a lucky coincidence! I wonder if they have had any help with their airfares? That would seem like a fair question for someone on the committee to ask, if they want to get to the Heart of why their valuable time is being so egregiously wasted.

The ETS Review crank list in full:
Bryan Leyland, Carbon Sense Coalition (Australia), Centre for Resource Management Studies (aka Owen McShane), Dr Ferenc Miskolczi, Dr Kesten Green, McCabe Environmental Consultants(*), Miklos Zagoni, NZ Centre for Political Research, NZ Climate Science Coalition, Dr R M Carter, Vincent Gray.

NZ attendees at Heartland conferences (2008 and/or 2009) underlined. Muriel Newman’s NZ CPR was one of this year’s “sponsors”, but she didn’t have to fork out any money for that privilege, just proselytize. (*) Not known. To see full list of submitters making oral presentations click on “now read on…”.

Continue reading “Hows about telling a story”

Do you remember the first time?

NZETS.jpgThere’s a first time for everything, and today it was making an oral submission to a parliamentary committee — the ETS Review committee. I made my written submission public a while ago, so I won’t repeat that here, but in my 15 minute slot (5 mins for initial presentation, 10 mins for questions), I chose to emphasise four key points:

  • That the effects of climate change are being observed now, ahead of expectations. I quoted from the recent Copenhagen conference closing statement in support: For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
  • That the emissions reductions New Zealand will have to make are likely to be much steeper than currently envisaged, because the science is beginning to suggest we need to move beyond stabilisation of GHG levels into active sequestration (I mentioned Hansen and 350 ppm), and because simple equity demands that the developed world adopts a “cap and converge” approach to emissions in order to engage China and India.
  • That the climate commitment — the fact that we have 20 to 30 years of warming in the pipeline whatever we do means that New Zealand has place considerable emphasis on adaptation. We need to build resilience to the direct impacts of climate change here (which with luck won’t be too bad), and to the actions that other countries take to address change (counter food miles arguments and so on).
  • Finally, that early action on reducing emissions would be significantly less costly than making drastic forced changes later.

I closed by reiterating my first recommendation: that the government should seek to build a consensus of business and consumer interests on both the need for action, and the direction to be followed.

The questions were interesting. Charles Chauvel, Labour’s climate spokesman, asked me to elaborate on the matter of targets. John Boscawen (ACT) commented that my evidence flatly contradicted the previous submitter, Dr Bruce McCabe (which appears to have been along the lines of “cooling since…”), and asked if I would examine that evidence and explain to him why it was wrong. Peter Dunne asked me to do that on behalf of the whole committee, and I happily agreed. Should be an interesting exercise… 😉 Jeanette Fitzsimons (Green) then asked me to explain the significance (if any) of 8 year trends in climate data — obviously making a point to Boscawen. Finally, Nicky Wagner (National) asked me to elaborate a little on why regulatory action was required to complement the emissions trading scheme: I mentioned efficiency measures.

Looking at the full list of submitters the committee is hearing (available at Carbon News), it’s clear that more than a few of the usual crank suspects have got through: Bryan Leyland’s there, as is Vincent Gray and the NZ CSC. Plenty of debunking to come, as their submissions are made public… 😉

[Pulp]

Thank you world

Cheatin Heartland Muriel Newman, former ACT MP and doyenne of the libertarian right in NZ, has finally returned from New York where her NZ CPR was one of the “sponsors” of the Heartland crank fest. In the middle of her detailed report on the event, she quotes approvingly from the conference opening speech [PDF] by Czech president Vaclav Kraus:

To date, the only European Union leader prepared to take a principled stand on the global warming controversy has been the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. […] In his keynote address to the conference […] President Klaus, who is also the current President of the European Union, explained how the United Nations IPCC is a massive bureaucracy that is generously funded by those green businesses that have a great deal to gain from maintaining high levels of public fear over global warming alarmism. He also expressed his disappointment that no other leader was prepared to stand up against the propaganda: “A few weeks ago, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I spent three hours at a closed session of about sixty people – heads of states and governments with several IPCC officials and ‘experts’ like Al Gore, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan. […] It was a discouraging experience. You looked around in vain to find at least one person who would share your views. There was no one. All the participants of the meeting took man-made global warming for granted, were convinced of its dangerous consequences and more or less competed in one special discipline – whether to suggest a 20, 30, 50 or 80% CO2 emissions cut as an agreed-upon, world-wide project. It was difficult to say anything meaningful and constructive.” (my emphasis).

That rather nicely illustrates my contention that the real world is getting on with dealing with the issue, while the cranks — even Presidential cranks — find themselves marginalised.

Thanks for drawing that to my attention Muriel. And thank you, world.

[World Party]