Tag: Australia

RTFR, Jack

homer.jpg The old sea dog at the helm of our little flotilla of climate cranks has fired a broadside at the NIWA scientists involved in the preparation of this week’s revised climate projections for New Zealand. Yes, step forward Rear Admiral Jack Welch, who’s in fine bombastic form (perhaps he’s been taking lessons from Heartland’s J Bast Esq.) in a media release from the NZ CSC. According to Jack, “NIWA scientists have become political propagandists”:

The State Services Commission should investigate whether scientists of NIWA have crossed the boundary into politics with their sudden flurry of advocacy for action on so-called global warming at a time when the Government is struggling to gain support in Parliament for its Emissions Trading Scheme Bill. This today from the chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, Rear Admiral Jack Welch. “This flurry of advocacy has all the hallmarks of political spin, which has appalled the scientists associated with our coalition. Worse, NIWA is breaching the principles of good science by not qualifying its climate predictions with appropriate disclaimers.

Oh, the shock and the shame. Bow your heads, ye Nobel prizewinners, because the Admiral has spoken. He continues:

“Projections of future climate are not predictions, but speculation. They come from global climate models that have not been verified, so their output is merely conjecture. This is recognised across the Tasman, where the Australian CSIRO attaches a disclaimer to all its reports, such as this one on a report from the Queensland Government: ‘This report relates to climate change scenarios based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of the real physical processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO or the Queensland Government for the accuracy of forecasts or predictions inferred from this report or for any person’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance in this report.’

Unfortunately for the Rear Admiral, here’s what it says on page 2 of the report he’s complaining about:

As explained in the report, developing projections of future climate changes is still subject to significant uncertainty. The authors have used the best available information in preparing this report, and have interpreted this information exercising all reasonable skill and care. Nevertheless none of the organisations involved in its preparation accept any liability, whether direct, indirect or consequential, arising out of the provision of information in this report.

And a little bit later, in the executive summary (p xiii):

A definitive single quantitative prediction of how much a particular climatic element (eg, heavy rainfall intensity) will change over coming decades is not feasible. This is because the rate of climate change will depend on future global emissions of greenhouse gases, which in turn depend on global social, economic and environmental policies and development. Incomplete scientific knowledge about some of the processes governing the climate, and natural year-to- year variability, also contribute to uncertainty in projections for the future.

Seems to cover all of Jack’s points, and we haven’t even started reading the main body of the report (which is well worth reading in full).

Read The Flaming Report, Jack, before rushing to the media to complain about it. Sadly, I don’t think you bothered. I hope and expect that you will issue an equally speedy apology.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Never mind the bollocks…

RRSwindle.jpg Occasionally my rural postie (hi Jenny!) brings me something more interesting than bills. Last week, I received a package from Sky TV. Packed in a brown paper bag that looks remarkably like an airline sick bag, sealed with a “Warning: content may offend” sticker, was a DVD copy of The Great Global Warming Swindle, the sceptic “documentary” that caused a furore* when first shown on Channel 4 in the UK last year, and which Prime plan to show here in the next few weeks. Full marks for creative PR, but a definite fail for factual inaccuracies in the promotional leaflet they sent out (copy here). Apparently “the theory that man-made emissions of CO2 have a discernable (sic) effect on climate lacks robust scientific evidence”, “there’s overwhelming evidence indicating that it’s solar activity that determines temperature”, and “everything you’ve ever been told about Global Warming is probably untrue”. Sorry Prime, none of those statements are true, and the Advertising Standards Authority might have a thing or two to say about that…

The Great Global Warming Swindle is not a documentary, it’s a one-sided piece of propaganda made on behalf of climate sceptics that alleges that the world’s climate scientists are lying about global warming. It contains glaring inaccuracies, distortions of fact, and misrepresentations of the real state of climate science (and yes, I have watched it). It’s been the subject of 250 complaints in the UK (a ruling is expected from OFCOM, the UK broadcasting standards body, any day now), and the version being shown here still contains factual errors and distortions that were drawn to the film-maker’s attention at the time TGGWS was shown in Australia (July last year). It’s worth taking a moment to watch ABC’s science correspondent Tony Jones’ interview with Martin Durkin, the film’s producer (here and here). Neither of the two graphs Jones mentions have been corrected in the version Prime apparently plans to show in NZ. Nor have any of the serious scientific errors pointed out by Aussie scientists last year (Jones, D., Watkins, A., Braganza, K., and Coughlan, M. (2007), “The Great Global Warming Swindle”: a critique. Bull. Aust. Meteor. Ocean. Soc., 20(3) 63-72 – available as html, or PDF), or summarised nicely by Bob Ward at Climate of Denial. The Australian Science Media Centre also has a good resource page on the film. It remains a fundamentally flawed work that fails to meet any reasonable standard of accuracy.

Prime are clearly hoping to stir up a bit of controversy and boost their audience. They plan to show a “debate” following the screening, pitting cranks against scientists. By doing that they’re playing straight out of the sceptic playbook. They’re “teaching the debate”, when the debate has long since moved on to more interesting and relevant stuff. And they’re poisoning the well of public debate by showing material that’s been repeatedly demonstrated to be wrong. Prime should insist that Durkin corrects all the errors before the film is shown here, and identify it clearly as one man’s opinion, not a factual documentary. To provide some semblance of balance, they should drop the idea of a debate and replace it with a counterpoint from NZ’s climate scientists.

Freedom of speech should not extend to freedom to lie. The climate cranks want to make a political argument about climate policy – do nothing, or not very much, and then only slowly – but that is a political not a scientific argument. I’m happy to defend their right to hold their political opinions, but making up evidence in support of their arguments is simply wrong.

* Good summary of the row, and comprehensive links, at medialens.

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)”

Drinking wine spo-dee-o-dee

Grapes.jpg According to a Reuter’s piece in the Guardian [UK], New Zealand’s wine makers are upbeat about their prospects in a warming world. A warmer climate will increase the area suitable for producing fine wine, but it may mean changes in the grapes being grown.

Higher temperatures due to global warming are expected to make cold areas of New Zealand more temperate and better suited to grape cultivation. So it’s no surprise that New Zealand wine-growers are upbeat about a future that includes climate change. “The big picture for New Zealand wine is very, very good,” said Philip Gregan, chief executive of industry body New Zealand Winegrowers.

A rather nice confirmation of the view I expressed in Hot Topic. One of the interviewees is Clive Paton of Ata Rangi, a name to conjure with in the world of NZ red wine:

Paton said the Martinborough climate is ideal for producing Pinot Noir, but a slight rise in the temperature would be enough to tip the balance. So Paton has been looking at Syrah, also known as Shiraz, getting to grips with the nuances of an alternative variety, in preparation for a potential shift. “Even if it does rise a half or one degree, it’s still going to be a great place for growing grapes,” said Paton.

Very true. Good job we have some syrah chez Hot Topic. But what if the warming is not so moderate…? The rest of the world is worried. Discovery Channel covers the second Climate Change & Wine conference, being held in Barcelona this weekend. Pancho Campos, the president of the Wine Academy of Spain, who organized the conference, also thinks we might be on to a good thing:

The French “Grand Crus” could be further threatened by the “New World” wines of Australia, California, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand, who would have the best climatic conditions. “The countries in the southern hemisphere are next to a greater mass of water, and it is sea currents which maintain the temperature at its level,” said Campos.

Agence France Press coverage here.
[Update 21/2: The Herald picks up the Reuters story and expands it with a few (fairly old, I think) quotes from NIWA’s Jim Salinger. Interesting that the Herald predicts that we might be growing sauvignon blanc in Canterbury in 20 – 30 years. I wonder what that means for the 250,000 sav blanc vines already down the road from me….]

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

homer.jpg 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 truth—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?”