Tag: coal

Chris hates Greenpeace

False balance time at the Herald. Last week they gave Greenpeace climate campaigner Susannah Bailey a chance to look at how certain sectors of the business community (Greenhouse Policy Coalition, Business Roundtable etc) are lobbying against current plans for an emissions trading scheme, this week they give NZ Climate “Science” Coalition science advisor Chris de Freitas space to express a different point of view. Bailey’s language was a deal more measured than de Freitas, who indulges in some vibrant green-bashing:

The fanatical name calling and personal attacks expose the strong ideological elements that drive global warming alarmist thinking. It’s as if the depth of passion is overcompensation for doubt and uncertainty. Why else would environmentalists squander so much effort trying to discredit individuals and organisations who disagree?

Warning: I’m about to squander some time trying to discredit de Freitas – whose grasp of the underlying science seems a little – how shall I put this – shaky for an associate professor in the School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland.

Continue reading “Chris hates Greenpeace”

The gentle sound of axes being ground

The big emitters’ carefully co-ordinated campaign against the proposed NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is having a big week. Following on from last week’s Castalia report, the Greenhouse Policy Coalition and the Major Electricity Users Group are now claiming that a survey shows the ETS will have big economic impacts [Herald , NBR]:

The relatively small survey of 32 firms, which includes some meat companies, pulp and paper mills, iron, steel, shipping, cement, dairy, mining and supermarkets shows that a carbon price of $30/tonne will cost those firms $241 million in increased direct energy costs, result in deferred investment of $1.5 billion, put at risk over 2000 existing jobs and 425 new jobs had planned investment gone ahead.

The survey cunningly ignores the government’s proposal to grandfather emissions in most sectors, presumably so that it could paint the worst possible picture of economic impacts.

Forgive me if I consider that a survey conducted by a lobby group, based on a tiny response and dubious methodology, that just happens to show exactly what the lobby group wants it show, is meaningless. But from the GPC’s perspective, any noise is presumably good noise. Which is about all that can be said for a column by Alasdair Thompson of the Employers and Manufacturers Association in the Herald. Fodder for the spin machine. Even Westpac got in the act, claiming that a carbon price would put inflationary pressure on the Reserve Bank, on equally flimsy grounds. And by some strange coincidence, the Business Roundtable just happens to have shipped notorious British sceptic Nigel Lawson over from the UK to sing for his supper on Thursday. No guesses about the tune Nigel will bellow… (I’ll be posting about Lawson later this week). Fortunately, Rod Oram’s around to demonstrate (in his Sunday Star Times column at the weekend) that there are plenty of businesses who don’t need a weatherman (or climate scientist) to know which way the wind is blowing.

All this PR activity is about framing the debate. If the big emitters can ignore the climate imperative and international consequences of our actions and spin this as about economics and prosperity and jobs, they presumably hope to be able to get the scheme watered down or delayed. Tactically, it may be about trying to separate National from its early acceptance of the ETS proposals. Can Key and Smith resist the siren call of corporates with deep pockets?

I don’t like Mondays

Lady Young, head of the UK’s Environment Agency, thinks that coping with climate change demands wartime urgency, as the Telegraph [UK] reports:

“This is World War Three – this is the biggest challenge to face the globe for many, many years. We need the sorts of concerted, fast, integrated and above all huge efforts that went into many actions in times of war. We’re dealing with this as if it is peacetime, but the time for peace on climate change is gone – we need to be seeing this as a crisis and emergency,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Observer covers a new report from a peace group:

This stark warning will be outlined by the peace group International Alert in a report, A Climate of Conflict, this week. Much of Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Even Europe is at risk.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and the International Energy Agency sees “inexorable”growth in energy demand over the next 30 years with a risk of more coal being burned. It does suggests a 450ppm CO2 limit might be achievable, but:

“Exceptionally quick and vigourous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality.”

Not much hope of that. And the China Post says EU officials reckon that China will reject binding limits on emissions in any post-Kyoto deal. The words “hell” and “handbasket” spring to mind…On the upside? Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times [UK] looks at options for “fixing” climate through technology (well worth a read), scientists at Harvard and Penn State reckon they’ve found a way to speed up a natural weathering process to neutralise ocean acidity and remove carbon from the atmosphere, and Technology Review reports on a Dutch biofuel company working with a California-based venture capital outfit to develop catalysts that can turn organic matter such as waste wood into biocrude – chemicals that can be processed to make biofuels. If you’ve got money to invest, the Observer [UK] reckons that one of a new breed of green investment funds might be a good place to put it.

They would say that, wouldn’t they…

This week it’s the turn of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition to trumpet a report urging a go-slow on emissions trading. The GPC, of course, are the nation’s big emitters (NZ Aluminium Smelters, Holcim, Solid Energy, Fonterra etc), and they are lobbying hard on behalf of their members. The usual suspects (Business Roundtable, Business NZ) weighed in behind the report, while Greenpeace and the Business Council For Sustainable Development took the opposite view. Brian Fallow at the Herald provides an overview – but not much in the way of substantive criticism.

The report, The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme: How do we make it work? [PDF], by Alex Sundakov at Castalia, is pretty obviously a bit of special pleading on behalf of big emitters – primarily agriculture – and in that respect its conclusions are hardly surprising. These are the key suggestions (from the press release):

Continue reading “They would say that, wouldn’t they…”

Revenge of the zombie facts

Dr Vincent Gray is one of the most active of NZ’s little band of cranks. He’s been publishing his “envirotruth” newsletter since the ’90s, always brimful of climate scepticism, and has been a stalwart reviewer of IPCC reports. His most recent contribution to the IPCC process was to make 1,898 comments on the final draft of the Working Group One report – 16% of the total, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he accounted for 95% of the comments rejected by the authors. Vincent’s offerings are the backbone of the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition site, and I always enjoy reading them.

His most recent, Problems With Surface Temperature Data [PDF], is typical. He asserts it’s impossible to arrive at a meaningful figure global temperature, prefers satellite data but doesn’t believe it, and then states that “Since the amalgamated surface record is unreliable, an indication of temperature change over the past century can be obtained from well-maintained local records. Attempts to correct for the many errors, though not entirely successful, give records of some credibility.” (Otherwise known as the cherry-pickers charter). He then disinters a 1994 paper that found a 60-65 year cycle in global temperature (but I thought that was meaningless) if the data is “detrended”. One wonders what trend was removed. Perhaps the long term underlying rise in temperature? If we ignore the data, it goes away. Magical thinking at its finest.

[UPDATE 6/11/07: NASA’s excellent Earth Observatory posts a very interesting article about James Hansen and the development of the global temperature record. There’s a superb animation of atmospheric flows from space on page 2.]

But the most interesting part of Vincent’s report is the note at the end: “This paper is part of “The Science is not Settled: Major Issues Remain Unresolved by the IPCC: A Report of the NIPDD” (sic) (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) to be published by the Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington Virginia.” The NIPCC? Seems this is something Fred Singer at SEPP has set up as a counterblast to the IPCC, and its report is due soon. From Fred’s The Week That Was for Sept 1st:

Highlights of the NIPCC Report

  • Demonstration of the insignificance of human contribution to current warming – using the ‘fingerprint’ method – and why future anthropogenic warming is negligible
  • Why climate models do not agree with observations – the role of feedbacks
  • Evidence that solar activity controls most climate change on a decadal time scale
  • Evidence that future warming will not accelerate sea level rise appreciably
  • No evidence for more storms, hurricanes, droughts, and floods as climate warms
  • How we know that a warmer climate is better than a colder one
  • Evidence that the Medieval Period was warmer than today
  • Evidence that pre-1940 warming was not anthropogenic
  • Problems with data quality and special problems with sea surface temperatures
  • Uncertainties about the CO2 budget, past and future – and of future emission scenarios
  • Changes in ocean heat storage, glacier length, and sea ice coverage indicate climate change – but not whether the cause is anthropogenic or natural

That’s a mind-boggling list. If all the papers show the – how shall I put it politely – “rigorous” approach to the science that Dr Gray demonstrates, the NIPCC report will be a real paradigm shift. Or perhaps not.