Global warming and the future of New Zealand
In a shock revelation on Aussie TV last night (see above), investigative journalists at ABC’s The Hamster Wheel have confirmed what insiders had suspected for some time — prominent climate denier and potty peer Christopher Monckton is in fact the latest project of Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen. Scrotum is not amused…
[Hat-tip: Peter “Climate Crocks” Sinclair]
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a retired conservative politician with a penchant for writing opinion pieces and a limited understanding of certain issues will one day start talking bollocks — and that day has arrived with a vengeance for Michael Cox. The former National MP and Waipa district councillor let rip in the Waikato Times this morning:
Those who witter on (to chatter or babble on pointlessly or at unnecessary length) about emissions of green-house gasses, usually come from the left side of the political spectrum. They make me mad.
Mad? Yes, but perhaps not in the sense he intended. His political rage has led him rather a long way off the path of reason into the dark woods where lurk misdirection — and climate cranks.
La Nina makes a return, Times Atlas Gate (or something like that), the Petermann Glacier break-up, Pirates cause global warming (not really) and Ice adventurer Rob Swan pushes for Green Growth. Gareth is still away but John and Glenn will play, The Climate Show is back for another spin.
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Continue reading “The Climate Show #19: A Tale of Two Poles”
The recent CERN paper in Nature on cosmic rays and cloud formation has caused considerable excitement in the denialist world. Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post declared “The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun – not human activities – as the controller of climate on Earth”. For what the paper really said readers can turn to the welcome and discussion it received on RealClimate. There’s also a useful response to Solomon’s claim on SkepticalScience.
It’s a complex picture, but today I came across this short video which sets it out straightforwardly and with a light touch. (Thanks to The Carbon Brief website.) Put together by Australian science journalist Potholer, it is both an explanation of the science and a picture of how misinterpretations travel in the denialist community.
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I read this morning yet another dismal report on the extraordinary lengths to which Republican politicians hopeful of nomination as presidential candidate in America are going in their denial of climate change. Then I watched an excellent PBS television interview with a couple of intelligent and knowledgeable American scientists which regular Hot Topic commenter Bill had recommended.
It was an extraordinary juxtaposition, all the more surreal because both relate to Texas. How does a country like the US, with scientists and scientific institutions so advanced, manage to throw up leading politicians so wilfully ignorant? (That’s a rhetorical question unless your answer has nothing to do with money.) Continue reading “Jolting Contrasts”
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