Hot Topic – Page 343 – Global warming and the future of New Zealand

The roots of denial

In Hot Topic, I relegated discussion of climate cranks and their arguments to an appendix. In that section I look at the roots of denial, the influence of politics on scientific debate (or not-so-scientific debate, in most cases), and tried to highlight the irrelevance of sceptical views to our predicament today. UC San Diego historian of science Naomi Oreskes – already well known in climate circles for her paper testing the reality of consensus amongst climate scientists – gave a lecture titled The American Denial of Global Warming back in December last year, and it is well worth 58 minutes of anyone’s time. The first half deals with the history of climate science, and just how much agreement existed by the ’60s. In the second half she looks at how the George C Marshall institute developed the tactics of denial to defend Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, and then applied it to tobacco, the ozone hole, and, eventually, climate science. The roots of all the sceptic tropes used by our tame NZ CSC are laid out for all to see. Highly recommended.

Hat tip: dbeck in comments at RealClimate, John Mashey and Tim Lambert at Deltoid.

Being economical with the truth, or lying through her teeth?

Politicians are skilled at manipulating facts to convey any impression they desire. It’s called spin, and in its worst cases truthiness – nicely defined by the man who invented the term, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report: “We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truthâ€”the truth we want to exist.” Out in wingnut land, they want to believe that global warming is not real. So Muriel Newman at her NZ Centre for Political Research web site starts spinning the facts and, in the middle of a rambling attempt to justify a recent climate crank call for a joint Australia-NZ Royal Commission on climate change manages to come out with the following:

Anyone who claims that the science on global warming is settled is wrong. There is now growing evidence that that the earth is not warming but cooling: since the 1970s the glaciers of the Arctic, Greenland, and the Antarctic have been growing, and since 1998 average world temperatures have been falling with 2006 cooler than 2005 and 2007 cooler still.

This may be what Muriel fervently believes, but it is also completely untrue. So untrue, in fact, that saying it in an attempt to influence public policy amounts to lying. Sadly, in the echo chamber of truthiness around her web site, she gets taken at face value. Out in the wider world, it simply leaves her credibility in tatters.

Continue reading “Being economical with the truth, or lying through her teeth?”

They would say that (again), wouldn’t they?

There are times when specially commissioned economic forecasts are a useful contribution to debate on emissions reductions, and times when they are not. The latest, commissioned by the Business Roundtable and the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association (Pepanz) from Adolf Stroombergen at Infometrics, is a fine example of the latter. The numbers allow Roger Kerr to rumble ominously [Stuff, Herald, original BR press release (PDF)]:

“The impact on numerous industries would be devastating – reductions in output of the order of 30 per cent to 40 per cent are reported in the case of sheep and dairy farming – and major industrial firms could face complete closure,” Mr Kerr said.

Even worse, households could be $19,000 a year worse off by 2025 and the government would still fail to meet a notional target of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2025. Sounds dire. Better do nothing then…

But, as is usual with these things, when you look at the assumptions that underpin the forecast, you find that they have been carefully designed to produce the result the sponsors wanted. Take a look at the method used (see PDF linked above): they define a “business as usual” case against which they will measure the costs of emissions reductions – and they shoot for GDP growth of 4.5 – 5% per annum. I don’t have the figures to hand, but I can’t think of any period in the recent past when GDP growth has been that high – and certainly not for 17 successive years. And the costs? They use very high carbon prices (up to $300/tonne). So, when you artificially inflate both long term growth and the costs of action, you discover that action’s expensive.

Why am I not surprised?

And I’m not entirely surprised by news (Radio NZ) that 15 iwi leaders, chaired by Tuku Morgan and meeting at the Waitangi Treaty grounds say they oppose all climate-change legislation – because it has no regard for Treaty rights. But I’d like to know more about why. Forestry interests are one thing, geothermal sensitivies another, but what are the Treaty implications?

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 electric Kim Hill

Kim Hill’s Saturday Morning show on Radio NZ National is required listening in our house, and this morning she had a most interesting discussion with Ian Wright, a New Zealander who was involved in the early days of Tesla Motors, and who is now running his own EV start up – Wrightspeed. Here’s what he’s up to:

The X1 prototype is just the beginning. It meets its design specs of 0-60 in 3 seconds, 170 mpg equivalent; and at 1536 lbs, is only 36 lbs over the design target of 1500. It really does raise the performance driving experience to a new level, even for racing drivers. No clutch, no shifting, precise and immediate control of torque in drive and braking, perfect traction controlâ€¦first gear takes you to 112mphâ€¦

If you want a glimpse of the future of transport, go get the podcast.