Prat watch #11: don’t fone us…

Bill McKibben must have been doing something right during his New Zealand tour: he’s drawn the ire of the local climate cranks in no uncertain fashion. Perhaps it was the packed houses he addressed in Auckland, Dunedin and Wellington, or his interview on RNZ National’s high-rating Saturday Morning show with Kim Hill, but the clarity and certainty of his message drew a vituperative response from “Climate Conversation” blogger Richard Treadgold. In an ill-tempered personal attack, Treadgold described McKibben as a “climate nutcase” and “a madman”.

His voice is engaging, almost reasonable, but his wild eyes cannot help but flash his burning lunacy at the camera.

It’s par for the course for Treadgold, whose tenuous claim to fame is as the man who kicked off the climate cranks’ losing attempt to sue the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) ((They still haven’t paid a brass farthing of the costs awarded against them.)), but his fact-free and ill-informed rant was not the only attempt to counter McKibben’s message.

Continue reading “Prat watch #11: don’t fone us…”

McKibben: NZ needs to move away from oil and coal

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Bill McKibben‘s on the New Zealand leg of his Do The Maths downunder tour, and I got the chance for a quick chat with him earlier today ((Rosie the truffle machine would like to apologise for her decision to whimper in the background.)). Bill lays out the essence of the carbon budget we have to live within if we’re to avoid roaring past 2ºC, explains the carbon finance bubble, discusses China’s approach to renewables, and why NZ should avoid exploiting its oil and coal reserves. See Bill in Dunedin tonight, and Wellington tomorrow.

TDB today: Europe floods as Arctic melts

In my column at The Daily Blog today, I ruminate on the links between the historic and damaging floods in central Europe and the rapid warming of the Arctic. What will it take to make the world’s leaders wake up to the rapid changes that are happening now? Comments at TDB, please…

NZCCC 2013: Jim Renwick on Antarctic sea ice, SAM and ozone

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Here’s the final interview I recorded at last week’s NZ Climate Change Conference in Palmerston North: VUW’s Dr Jim Renwick ((Apologies to Jim for inadvertently using the British pronunciation of his surname in the introduction. I’m told that my usage is a reliable indicator of a migrant from the UK… )) talking about the complex relationship between the southern annular mode — a north-south movement of the westerly winds that blow around Antarctica — sea ice growth and the ozone hole. It’s interesting stuff, not least because SAM has a significant impact on NZ weather and climate, and how it might change in the future is a very big factor in projecting southern hemisphere climates in a warmer world. The abstract of his conference presentation, Antarctic sea ice, the SAM, and the future of the ozone hole, is here.

NZCCC 2013: Andy Reisinger on mitigating emissions in New Zealand

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Day two of last week’s climate change conference kicked off with a keynote from Andy Reisinger, the deputy director of the NZ Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre on New Zealand’s wedges – a balanced meal? I grabbed ten minutes with him to explore some of the issues he raised.