Author: Gareth

A rainbow (warrior) in curved air

RW08.jpg Second conference in a week in Wellington: this time the LexisNexis climate change symposium with lots of lawyers and a very impressive speaker list – and an invite to the Rainbow Warrior for a webcast climate change debate between David Parker, Nick “for Nelson” Smith, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Hone Harawira, with Sean (Jeepster) Plunket in the chair. Thanks to Greenpeace for getting me in (Susannah, Cindy, Kathy). It was most interesting. I’m planning to dissect the various parties promises in the run up to the election, so it was good to get a head start. Nick Smith was keen to get as many hits on David Parker as possible, but perhaps sensed he was on a sticky wicket given recent history. Hone was content to defer to the Greens on all matters of direct policy, and even DP did the same when I changed the subject from emissions to adaptation policy. Not satisfactorily answered, in my view, but watch the webcast and decide for yourselves.

I have a talk to give tomorrow, and so to bed.

There will never be any peace (until God is seated at the conference table)

hot-topic-cover.jpg Some notes from Saturday’s conference. God may not have been at the conference table, but there was Swamiji, who is certainly revered amongst his followers. My presentation [PDF here: warning – 7MB] followed two Nobel prizewinners – David Wratt (NZ’s representative on the IPCC, who covered the basic AR4 findings) and Pene Lefale (lead author of the WG2 chapter on impacts in the Pacific). Pene’s talk was fascinating, based on a paper he’s preparing on what he’s called the “perfect political problem” – reconciling the differences between developed and developing countries views on how to approach climate change. All the other speakers were good, but it was Andrew West, CEO of AgResearch who made – for me – the most telling comments. Drawing on his background as an ecologist, he looked at the big issue – coping with 9 billion people. Not all of them will be able to eat a meat-rich diet… Andrew shares my enthusiasm for topoclimate studies as a means of adapting to climate change. Are you reading this MfE? Time for a full topoclimate survey of NZ…

Notes on my talk below the fold…

Continue reading “There will never be any peace (until God is seated at the conference table)”

(What’s so funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding

hot-topic-cover.jpg I’m just putting the final touches to my talk at tomorrow’s World Peace Summit: Climate Change – What To Do? in Wellington, at the Westpac St James Theatre. David Wratt, Pene Lefale and I will be covering climate science and local impacts, and Andrew West, Rod Oram, Rachel Brown and Nick Collins will handle the what to do part (full programme here). The day’s organised by the Yoga In Daily Life organisation, and their top man H. H. Mahamandaleshwar Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda (Swamiji) will be in the chair. The event runs from 9-00 to 5-30, and tickets are $75. Should be an interesting way to spend a Saturday for Wellingtonians, if you ignore my bit…

Breaking up is (not so) hard to do

wilkins_ice_shelf_from_bas_.jpg “Hot” news from the Antarctic: another ice sheet is breaking up. The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a 13,680 square kilometre ice shelf on the SW coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, began to break up at the end of February. From the NSIDC release:

Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28; data revealed that a large iceberg, 41 by 2.5 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles), fell away from the ice shelf’s southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf interior (Figure 1)

Here’s Figure 1:

wilkins.jpg

The British Antarctic Survey flew their Twin Otter aircraft over the collapsing ice shelf. The video it took (available here) is truly amazing.

[Update: Jeff Masters posts a nice map of Antarctic warming, the BBC story includes the BAS video.]

[Update 2: NASA Earth Observatory coverage (with new pix), dompost story here.]

Black is the new white

homer.jpg Once again the sceptic-friendly opinion pages of the Herald provide noted NZ denier Chris de Freitas with a platform to spout the most astonishing tripe. It seems CdF reacted badly to a Reuters report about Tuvalu’s concerns about sea level rise. So he rushes to assure the Pacific island nation that their problem has nothing to do with climate change:

There is some inundation evident on islands in Tuvalu, but global warming is not the cause. It is the result of erosion, sand mining and construction projects causing an inflow of sea water.

That’s a relief. An associate professor in the geography department at Auckland University knows better than the world’s climate scientists and the government of Tuvalu. I hope the people of Tuvalu are suitably relieved.

Unfortunately, Chris undermines his good deed by continuing to talk utter nonsense. And “utter” is a mild description.

Continue reading “Black is the new white”