Posts by cindy baxter

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  • Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Natasha Markham,

    with you totally on this one Natasha.

    A post-oil city. A city that can be held up as a beacon of sustainability, that we can all look up to and use as a global example of what's possible.

    Bob Parker has already alluded to this - clearly he's thinking in the right direction.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Cracker: Strike Nine (and counting),

    It was a stitch up, the other guy started it, and he'd probably admit it too, if he hadn't hit that table on a particularly nasty angle on the way down, and lost his life. She'd seemed happy enough about it at the time, it was only the next day she regretted it and didn't want to get in trouble with her parents, honest.

    While he could argue it that way, it's not like getting a passport with a dead baby's name is a single event like your examples. Such deception takes a good while to execute - photos, application forms, paying for it, finding the baby's name in the first place. Very pre-meditated. And all along knowing that none of it was legal.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Doing Science in Court,

    I do hope they field the potty peer, Monckton as their scientific expert, as the GOP did in the US hearings.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Doing Science in Court,

    I note that Brian admits his other "friends" or "political affiliations" are the ACT party.

    That he doesn't do the books isn't enough - that was a ridiculous answer - the public has a right to know whether this court case is being paid for by big business. I wonder if anyone at RNZ will go back and check with Terry, the bloke who does the books, or will they just let that slide?

    But of course today the climate "science" coalition will be crowing - they have gained more publicity today than they've been able to in a good long while. Presumably Media 7 will also discuss, as you've mentioned Russell, the "he-said-she-said" mode of journalism that suits the climate denialists so well. It serves their purpose: raise doubt in the public mind.

    By the way, did you know that the links between smoking and cancer have never been 100% proven?

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Public Address: Technical Profile,

    RIP netscape

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Climate science and the media,

    I'd be very interested in Randerson's response, particularly after Santer's response to Randerson on RealClimate. Fred Pearce continued to get it wrong, and Santer pulled him up on it. But the Guardian didn't correct the vast majority of Pearce's pieces which both Gavin Schmidt and Ben Santer tore to shreds.

    But back to FOI. Clearly UEA didn't brief its scientists properly on how to deal with them. But if you're one of the three scientists at the CRU, and you get 40 FOI requests in just one weekend, what do you do? Science, or FOI requests? Clearly they needed help and guidance. Also tied up in this was the fact that a lot of scientific institutions also didn't allow their datatsets to be released, which confused things even more.

    I do hope Media 7 goes beyond the FOI issue, but also extends to the lies in the blogosphere about what "climategate" was, the fact that the Inquiries so far have exonerated them, the Sunday Times' fluffed "amazongate" which has now been very well-covered over at Tim Lambert's blog, Deltoid (the link is to his entire series about the Sunday Times).

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Climate science and the media,

    The FOI requests were vexatious..

    they certainly were. 40 submitted over one weekend.

    I liked the way the economist summed up the different sides of this "debate":

    In any complex scientific picture of the world there will be gaps, misperceptions and mistakes. Whether your impression is dominated by the whole or the holes will depend on your attitude to the project at hand. You might say that some see a jigsaw where others see a house of cards. Jigsaw types have in mind an overall picture and are open to bits being taken out, moved around or abandoned should they not fit. Those who see houses of cards think that if any piece is removed, the whole lot falls down. When it comes to climate, academic scientists are jigsaw types, dissenters from their view house-of-cards-ists.

    I say "debate" because that's all that the denialists want to do - continue to create doubt in the minds of the public, so they don't put pressure on governments to take action.

    Recommended reading (also a shameless promotion of my work), "Dealing in Doubt" - which chronicles SOME of the attacks on the IPCC, climate scientists and the science over the last 20 years.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: The back of a bloody envelope,

    I'm not sure that people understand the toxic side effects of mining - it was briefly touched on in Nine to Noon today.

    Both gold and coal mining produce mountains of toxic waste full of heavy metals - waste that has to be kept away from the environment for decades (very difficult to do). The interweb is full of examples of toxic waste from mining being dumped into precious lakes, rivers, etc. Just reading an EPA document: 72 tonnes of gold produced 103 million tonnes of waste.

    They talk of "just a hole in the side of a mountain" but out of that hole comes terrible stuff - cyanide commonly used in extracting gold, plus mercury, cadmium, and a dozen other highly toxic substances.

    NZ hasn't got a very good record when it comes to dealing with toxic waste.

    The coal industry is similar. Gotta look at the big picture here.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: Good Newsing,

    late posting, but thanks for all the clips peoples... "hey" was my particular highlight... i loved that everyone knew all the words to everything - nothing like a good singalong to raise the spirits.

    but seriously, this monkey went to heaven at the Vector Arena on friday night.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

  • Hard News: That Summer!,

    .

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report

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