Tag: coal

The law won (again)

Correction and apology to The Listener and its editor Pamela Stirling

On 16 April 2008 we published on this site an article written by Gareth Renowden entitled “Climate cranks claim a scalp”. That article suggested that Dave Hansford had been sacked by The Listener as a result of views that he expressed on climate change, and that The Listener had caved in to pressure from the NZ Climate Science Coalition, or had sacked him because his views did nor coincide with those of The Listener‘s editor, Pamela Stirling. The article also questioned The Listener‘s commitment to environmental issues and its editorial integrity and independence, and was critical of its conduct with respect to Mr Hansford. In fact Mr Hansford was not sacked by The Listener, and nor did The Listener seek to censor or suppress Mr Hansford’s views. Hot Topic and AUT Media Ltd accept that The Listener and its editor have a strong commitment to environmental issues, and that there was no basis for any of the criticisms expressed on this site of either The Listener or its editor, or of the editorial integrity and independence of The Listener. Hot Topic and AUT Media Ltd unreservedly withdraw those statements an apologise to The Listener and to Pamela Stirling for the distress caused by our publication.

I heard it through the grapevine

Grapes.jpg Could vineyards be the “canary in the coalmine” for climate change impacts on agriculture? British wine writer Robert Joseph in the Guardian [UK] covers some of the ideas that emerged in last month’s Barcelona wine and climate conference:

For anyone who feels they have finally mastered the concept of postmodernist books and architecture, there is a new intellectual and linguistic challenge, in the shape of “post-classic” wines. The term was coined by the world’s leading viticulturist Dr Richard Smart, at the second World Conference on Global Warming and Wine in Barcelona last month before an audience of the great and good of the wine world and – via a carbon-saving video link – Al Gore. If even a few of the alarming predictions made by experts at that event prove accurate, many of the world’s most famous wines may either simply cease to exist or be altered beyond recognition over the next 50 years. The effect of climate change will not be restricted to wine – but for Smart, wine may be “the canary in the coal mine of agriculture”.

It’s an excellent piece, well worth reading even if your only interest in wine is drinking the stuff. (Declaration of interest: RJ is an old mate, and I have a small vineyard).

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?”

The canary croaked

From AP (via CNN): “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming,” said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. “Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” The annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco is bringing bad news about the Arctic – most of it listed in the foregoing linked article. One paragraph is particularly shocking:

Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004’s total.

In three years, half of the summer ice has gone. In Hot Topic I suggest that it might all be gone in my lifetime – and I thought I was being pretty daring, given that the IPCC talks about the end of the century. One ice modeller who has been predicting an early demise for the summer sea ice is the US Navy’s Wieslaw Maslowski. From the BBC:

“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC. “So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”

RealClimate is providing coverage of AGU highlights (here, here, here and (update – sea ice specific) here. The Herald runs with a very US-angled Reuters story. As I’ve pointed out before, the consequences of the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic for northern hemisphere climate is not known, but I would expect that there’s some urgent work being done to find out. We’re into the land of the unknown unknowns, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

Tomorrow? The world!

Guess who’s gone to Bali? Distinguished scientist and IPPC expert reviewer (aka home-grown climate crank) Vincent Gray. He’s hobnobbing with the upper crust cranks like Christopher, Viscount Monckton. It appears – thanks to digging by Tim Lambert over at Deltoid – that the NZ C”S”C now forms the core of a supposedly international organisation, the International Climate “Science” Coalition, and they’re in Bali, trying to get their message across. It isn’t working though, because US right wing lobby group the Heartland Institute has had to rush out a press release claiming that the UN has been crushing dissent.

One question. Where’s the money coming from? The airfares can’t have been cheap, and the Daily Telegraph (UK) tells some frightening tales about the cost of hotels and food. I wonder if the Heartland Institute has funded the swish website, and did the Science and Public Policy Institute (a Heartland spin-off) dig into its pockets to help out with expenses? Monckton’s an adviser there, as is Bob Carter.

One comment. Looking at the member list, it looks like all the usual suspects – Bellamy, Ball, Carter et al – but they choose to send Vincent to Bali. Folie de grandeur, perhaps? Perhaps being ignored while the world’s diplomats attempt to find a solution to a problem they deny will bring them to their senses. But I doubt it. Meanwhile, our little NZ band of cranks provide a means for the US rabid right to get their climate message out. They should be ashamed of themselves.