Tag: warming

Biofuels to fly, and other stories

747Air New Zealand is carefully positioning itself as a climate-friendly airline with its latest announcement that it is to trial biofuels in a 747 flight from Auckland in the next couple of years. Working with Boeing, Air NZ will be part of the first commercial trial of biofuel, in a Rolls-Royce-powered jumbo in the next 18 months . The flight will only use biofuel in one engine, and will not carry customers. [Stuff, Herald, BBC, June HT blog on aviation biofuels].

Aussie forecast: drier and hotter

Wp-Content Uploads 2007 07 AusssiesmallAustralians are going to have to come to terms with climate commitment. They face a rise in average temperature of 1ºC by 2030, and a significant increase in drought. The latest research on Australia’s future climate (Climate Change in Australia [PDFs here], by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology) was released yesterday at the Greenhouse 2007 conference in Sydney. According to one of the authors, CSIRO scientist Dr Penny Whetton:

“The probability of warming exceeding 1°C is 10-20 per cent for coastal areas and more than 50 per cent for inland regions.

Cranky about the ETS

Wp-Content Uploads 2007 08 HomerOur little band of climate cranks couldn’t let an opportunity as big as the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme announcement pass by unremarked. And they didn’t. First out of the blocks was Bryan Leyland, “€œchairman of the economic panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition”, pre-empting the ETS announcement to complain about the government buying offsets for ministerial travel with a press release headed “€œIs your carbon tax really necessary?”

“€œIf there is no evidence of man-made warming in New Zealand – and in the world – this whole charade of cap and trade, and offsetting ministerial travel emissions, should cease forthwith before any more damage is done to our internationally fragile economy.”

Leyland’s views were echoed a couple of days later by a release from Owen McShane, “€œchairman of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition” (the NZ CSC appear to have enough panels to decorate a small stately home)…

Continue reading “Cranky about the ETS”

“Global warming heroes” ride on

CowFederated Farmers president Charlie Pedersen (our second Pedersen of the day — see ice post below) uses the opportunity of an opinion column in the Herald today to run his NZ farmers are “global warming heroes” PR once more round the block.

Surely it would be better for the global environment if these inefficient food producers scaled back their food production, and instead bought more food from New Zealand. It seems obvious that increasing greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand to produce more food is, overall, a better way to curb climate change. The whole world would be better off. So the next time you hear someone having a go at New Zealand farmers stuffing up the climate, challenge it. Remember, compared with subsidised, inefficient farmers in most other countries, New Zealand farmers are climate change heroes.

Charlie gets the basics of his argument right: food miles are a blunt tool, NZ farmers are — in world terms — relatively low-carbon producers of food, but his main point is both subtle and debatable. Buying NZ farm produce instead of more local, but higher carbon food would result in a net reduction in global emissions — if it were likely to happen. It isn’t. The “local food” movement (evidenced by the huge growth in farmer’s markets around the world) is about more than just carbon emissions. Consumers buy local because they like to support their local producers, and celebrate fresh seasonal produce. It’s a food and lifestyle movement, not a green ideology. It’s not going away, and whether our farmers like it or not, NZ is not local to anywhere other than itself.

The “subsidised, inefficient farmers” Charlie’s busily bagging will respond by reducing their carbon footprints, and improving their international carbon competitiveness. Our farmers need to be proactive, and do the same if they want to maintain their sales in export markets. It’s a commercial necessity. Sitting on your carbon laurels is not good policy.

Hot wine, or merely mulled?

GrapesJim Salinger of NIWA gave a talk on climate change and its implications for New Zealand’s wine growers at their annual Romeo Bragato conference, held in Auckland at the end of August.. The Herald reported some of the likely changes:

In the Gisborne area, chardonnay was likely to be replaced by shiraz, grenache and zindafel, while chardonnay and merlot were likely to be replaced by shiraz and malbec in Hawke’s Bay. Wairarapa’s pinot noir could be supplanted by merlot, malbec and cabernet franc grapes while cabernet sauvignon and merlot were likely to replace sauvignon blanc in Marlborough. In Canterbury, sauvignon blanc could replace chardonnay, while the pinot noir very suited to both Canterbury and Otago, could spread out to higher altitude sites in these regions.

Meanwhile, Napa Valley wineries are concerned about predictions that their premium vineyards could be worthless by the second half of this century, and in Alsace growers are reporting that climate change is already having a dramatic impact:

On a cobweb-encrusted rafter above his giant steel grape pressers, Rene Mure is charting one of the world’s most tangible barometers of global warming. The evidence, scrawled in black ink, is the first day of the annual grape harvest for the past three decades. In 1978, it was Oct. 16. In 1998, the date was Sept. 14. This year, harvesting started Aug. 24 — the earliest ever recorded, not only in Mure’s vineyards, but also in the entire Alsace wine district of northeastern France.

Mure wants to experiment with Rhone varietals like syrah, but France’s appellation rules make that difficult.