Tag: The Press

Fairytale Of New York

homer.jpg New Zealand’s climate cranks have been out in force in recent weeks. I’ve got a number of posts I’d like to make discussing what they have to say, but those got pushed down the queue by a column by Garth George in today’s Herald, helpfully headlined “Climate change warriors, throw down your weapons”. Garth devotes himself to a discussion of the “Manhattan Declaration“, the statement issued by the Heartland Institute‘s crank conference in New York last month, and then wonders:

Now why this forthright declaration did not receive prominent coverage in the press anywhere in New Zealand, including this newspaper’s vaunted Green Pages, I have no idea. It was, after all, a Kiwi initiative.

Perhaps, Garth, it’s because the “declaration” is nonsense, and the involvement of New Zealanders more a matter for national shame than pride? Let’s have a look at this declaration in a little more detail…

Continue reading “Fairytale Of New York”

Bryan bites back

Regular commenter (and literary critic) Bryan Walker was so incensed by the Herald’s decision to print a specious opinion piece by Canadian climate denier Tom Harris (see comments to The midweek omnibus) that he submitted an article in rebuttal, and a letter. The paper printed the letter at the weekend and the rebuttal today, showing that perhaps good sense has returned from its summer break (or that the editor has started reading the opinion pieces again). Nicely done, Bryan.

Also in today’s Herald: Gwynne Dyer’s feeling rather gloomy about the pace of negotiations in the face of accelerating climate change. And the The Press has finally posted a piece on Dutton’s Climate Debate Daily site that ran in Saturday’s paper. It’s rather friendly to the whole thing, but does at least mention my main criticism – that it posits a false equivalence that distorts the balance of evidence.

The Press: head buried deep in Brighton beach

The Press is my local newspaper. It’s one of New Zealand’s top four daily papers. I read it, on the web and on paper. It is a very important part of South Island, and especially Canterbury life. It even published a letter from me earlier this week, in which I pointed out a few factual errors in an opinion column in last Saturday’s paper (an economist getting his climate science wrong). I was therefore a trifle concerned to read its editorial today, which chastises the world’s diplomats for their high carbon antics in Bali (there are 15,000 of them, from all over the world, after all), and then concludes with this choice paragraph:

But failure to agree in the end may not be a bad thing. There are some who argue that muddling through with more ad hoc adjustments to climate change may be all that is needed. A major worry in the debate over climate change is that, where so much is contentious, any proposed overall “solution” may wind up doing more harm than good. The confusion of thought that led the UN to hold what looks like a jamboree for bureaucrats on a tropical island shows why that worry can sometimes seem justified.

Newspapers, like people (even economists) are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Failure in Bali may be inevitable. To believe that the world will work together to beat a global problem requires a leap of faith that flies in the face of historical precedent, but if we get no deal on emissions reductions, or a deal that delivers meaningless or insufficient cuts, the prospect for the world is not rosy. “Muddling through” is not an option to be preferred. The science does not support that contention. The editorial writer must have ignored his own paper’s news coverage of the issue and preferred to take the advice of the sceptical rump – Lawson, de Freitas and their sponsors. To further suggest that the solution could do more harm than good simply flies in the face of the evidence – from the IPCC, Stern, even the NZ Treasury.

If The Press expects its views to have influence and command respect, it will need to ensure that its opinion writers demonstrate some acquaintance with reality before they commit words to paper. The politics belongs in the response to the problem, not in denying that it exists.

And then there was one

Australia’s new prime minister Kevin Rudd has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the US as the only major industrial economy outside the agreement. It was his first act as PM, and will earn him a warm welcome at Bali [ABC, BBC, CBC, but nothing from the DBC]. Meanwhile, Simon Upton in The Press does a bit of “managing down” of expectations of results from Bali, echoing the sentiments of The Economist:

“Disappointment may come in a variety of different guises,” said an official. Those, like the European Union (EU) and activist groups, who want a global deal are not even looking for a road map for the post-2012 era. They will be happy if they manage to stop America, OPEC or the developing countries creating serious roadblocks.

Weekend roundup #12 & #35

Thousands of diplomats are on the road to Bali to start the negotiations for a post-Kyoto emissions reductions deal. I’ll be posting more on that as the conference progresses, but in the meantime Brian Fallow provides some useful context in the Herald, and Liz Banas at Radio NZ National produces an excellent Focus On Politics on the conference (listen live at 5-10pm Saturday, podcast available). Meanwhile, the UN turned up the pressure by issuing its latest Human Development Report [PDF], which gives us only ten years to get down to serious action.

  • To get up to speed with cap and whatever, the US-based Tomales Bay Institute has issued a concise little report , Carbon Capping – A Citizen’s Guide, which gives a good overview of how carbon trading works [PDF]. Very US-centric, and not exactly highbrow, but very clear and with a great glossary (via desmogblog).
  • Oxfam issued a briefing paper, Climate Alarm: Disasters increase as climate change bites [PDF], which concludes that climate change is already increasing the number of disasters affecting communities around the world. “The total number of natural disasters worldwide now averages 400– 500 a year, up from an average of 125 in the early 1980s. The number of climate-related disasters, particularly floods and storms, is rising far faster than the number of geological disasters, such as earthquakes.” [BBC], Independent (UK)]
  • I’ve been getting quite a few hits after TV3 featured New Plymouth’s electric car builder Gavin Shoebridge, featured here a few months ago. Apparently his YouTube pages (First Run here) have had more than 100,000 hits. A bit more than HT. It seems we’re less sexy than his Tredia…
  • On the clean energy front, the Aotearoa Wave and Tidal Energy Association reckons that tidal and wave power could be producing electricity in NZ in five years, there are discussions in Europe about building a 8,000km DC power grid to link giant windfarms scattered around the continent (so that somewhere always has wind), and The Guardian reports on research into cheap solar photovoltaics using organic polymers.
  • The whinging by big emitters about the ETS continues: Fran O’Sullivan details complaints by Solid Energy and Air NZ chair John Palmer about the “lack of debate” and the rubbishing of the NZI’s Fast Follower report (who, me?), while John Pfahlert of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand is given space by the Herald to add to the noise. More sensibly, on the other side of the world, British business lobby group the CBI (not a notably left-wing organisation) has called for fundamental change in British business, and Prince Charles has whipped up a statement signed by many of the world’s largest corporates urging the Bali conference to take serious action. From the Herald: “Contrary to the argument that mandatory pollution cuts would harm the economy, the business leaders’ petition says ambitious emissions reductions would “create significant business opportunities“. [Update: Full communiqué available here.]
  • Fonterra has commissioned a report into its carbon footprint [Herald , Scoop], AgResearch is going to analyse the lifecycle carbon footprint for sheep meat, and MAF prepared a report [PDF] for the Primary Industries 2020 Summit, held in Christchurch this week, that warns: “The drivers [of change] are global warming, climate change, and extreme weather; energy cost and supply; geopolitical power shifts, and international trade and investment; ecosystem degradation, and water quality and availability; demographic shifts; and technological advances.”
  • Meridian hopes to convert Stewart Island to 100% renewable energy, starting the process in January.
  • Further south, the Andrill project has been making rapid progress on another core from the seabed in McMurdo Sound. By now they should have a 1,100m core to set alongside last year’s 1,285m core – 20 million years of climate information drilled from the seabed.