Hard News: Climate science and the media
154 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
JLM,
-
You could kill both those birds with one stone through a R&D tax credit. Both govt and the private sector would be contributing.
Looked into it. Not worth the paper it was written on. If anyone successfully benefited from the scheme, or even signed up, I'd like to hear about it, as it seemed like a cost, not a benefit. Unless of course you're Fonterra.
Anyway, it was repealed. You can read all about it if you are really interested here and here.
-
The governments of New Zealand have for the last 20 years or more chosen to stop spending money in RS&T. That is something we are paying for now with reduced productivity and lower GDP. Blaming the private sector is cheap politics.
You'll note I asked "how" to increase private sector investment. Totally agree the government has to step up boldly in any case - or just stop with all the ridiculous talk about being "ambitious" when it's anything but.
R&D tax credit
Isn't that bog standard across the developed world?
-
Hi Ben, you mean solutions such as this one?
Precisely. I went to that mill a number of times - my brother worked there. Went I asked why they didn't use the rail he shrugged. "I know. It's RIGHT THERE".
-
Isn't that bog standard across the developed world?
Define 'developed world'.
Most enterprises in New Zealand are small and medium-sized enterprises. As at February 2005:
* 96.3% of enterprises employ 19 or fewer people
* 86.5% of enterprises employ 5 or fewer people
* 63.2% of enterprises have no employeesAnyway, it may be true, but for the 86% of New Zealand companies in the small business category, in order to get a 15% Tax credit, you first have to have an R & D budget, or even make a profit. From memory it's not a case of getting a 15% Tax Credit and spending it on unspecified R & D, it's getting a credit if you can prove your existing R & D projects qualify.
-
OECD?
-
OECD?
Actually, I was being facetious. No, really. But it is a more interesting question than I intended, and in looking into it I was reminded of the Human Development Index. New Zealand rates pretty highly in that. Higher than the UK for example.
Not so high on this R & D league table though. Surprised that Singapore is below us, but not sure how recent this is. And 1.1% of lots is still more than 1.2 percent of bugger all.
What the hell are they doing in Togo?
Thought this was funny. Barry Caplan said;
"This effectively means that a country of immortals with infinite per-capita GDP would get a score of .666 (lower than South Africa and Tajikistan) if its population were illiterate and never went to school."[12] Scandinavian countries consistently come out top on the list," he argues, "because the HDI is basically a measure of how Scandinavian your country is."
I'm trying to think of a country of illiterate uneducated immortals, oh and infinite per capita GDP. Is he a Douglas Adams economist?
Actually this guy just gets better and better.
Through the lens of the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, the welfare state doesn’t look like a serious effort to "equalize outcomes." It looks more like a serious effort to block the "revenge of the nerds"—to keep them from using their financial success to unseat the jocks on every dimension of social status.
Sorry, I'm way off topic now.
-
What the hell are they doing in Togo?
-
Hot Topic is teeing off on Garth George's latest effort on climate change.
Which is, it must be said, a work of the most surpassing and extravagant ignorance.
I realise there is a market for the blathering of foolish old men, which is why they Herald keeps him on, but surely the editors there must be looking at the string of outright inventions in the column and wondering about the paper's reputation.
Example:
…more and more evidence is available that gases such as carbon dioxide and methane have absolutely no effect on global temperatures.
Er, right. Somebody tell the Physics Department.
He proceeds to spit out a string of nonsense claims. It's genuinely astonishing that something so comprehensively wrong can actually be published.
-
You're too clever by half, young man. Garth puts it plain and simple. God set it all in motion, and He's not going to let humans wreck His planet. He designed it better than that.
-
God set it all in motion, and He's not going to let humans wreck His planet.
Unless of course this is the control planet and he is only going to intervene in the other Earth.
-
Garth is cunningly designed to test our faith.
Ooops, wrong thread -
I realise there is a market for the blathering of foolish old men
Talkback
-
What the hell are they doing in Togo?
Voodoo economics?
No, wait, I found it.
Projects in Togo.
I suspect the high percentage might come from the low GDP. Just a guess but. -
surely the editors there must be looking at the string of outright inventions in the column and wondering about the paper's reputation.
I'm sure there's some law-type point about libel or somesuch to be made here. Something about having a reputation to trash in the frst place?
-
I like Cindy's suggestion in comments:
someone should submit an Op Ed to the Herald about the benefits of smoking and especially second hand smoke. Could quote the Heartland Institute, Fred Singer, etc. Be interesting to see what they'd say.
-
Is anybody else concerned that Paula Bennett seems to have a poor grasp of what constitutes qualitative and mixed methods research?
The role of the Families Commission has been to research areas related to NZ families, for which we have very little research at all. So using mixed methods, including quantitative data, they have looked at many topics such as the varied experiences of grandparenting, or how families cope when members also work extremely long hours in paid work. The reports clearly show how government policy can help, for example, by reducing family financial stress They have also funded small blue skies research projects on family related topics.
She seems to think that there is very little to be gained from actually talking to real people in interviews or focus groups. Instead she wants .... I'm not sure.
-
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more the big boys at the Cabinet table demanding Treasury studies and international benchmarking from her. Actually, that would require an interest in evidence. As you were.
-
I don't want to seem churlish about what Professor Gluckman was saying. I get that there isn't much spare money and also that the Government might be reluctant to put more money into CRIs when they don't believe CRIs are working how they would like them to work.
I do think the changes sound good. The key shift is from seeing CRIs as a business which should make money to seeing them as RS&T institutes who generate ideas and transfer them to the relevant sector. That's a good change.
If only someone would tell the goverment, which is still leaning heavily on the CRIs to return a profit. Their default position is that we should be returning a set ROI, we have to negotiate hard to be allowed to keep some of that money back to try and keep the institute running.
It will be hard to achieve because we've had 10-20 years of establishing CRIs as businesses and much of the management has understandably adopted that mindset. So changing management (and science staff) thinking is the biggest and most difficult task.
All the CRI management and scientists I know would loooove to worry less about bidding & commercialising & maximising profits and to be able to concentrate on doing the work they signed up for - the science. I really don't think convincing scientists (and the majority of our managers are scientists) to do science and worry less about profits will be much of a battle - more the welcome end of a battle.
-
Russell - good programme tonight but too short as usual. As Peter Gluckman said, you need to be on every night for an hour to discuss these ideas.
Guardian man interesting too. It would be good to hear from Brian Deer, the Sunday Times journalist whose long campaign, determined investigative journalism, and scientific literacy finally brought Dr Andrew Wakefield's false autism theories and bad science to account.
-
By being skeptical about routine portents of doom, we can stay focused on the real threats that face our planet, and on the reasonable and achievable actions we as a society can take to meet them.
Amen to that. Anyone wondering why people are skeptical about AGW need read no further then the quick complication of eco doom forecasts that never came to be.
__• “...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
• The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.
• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
• “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
Here is the link to the article list.
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pressroom/pressreleases/4_22_2008.html
Skepticism is the only rational approach to forecasts of eco-doom. When would I begin to take AGW seriously? When someone has a model that has a track record of accuracy. Are there any global climate models from before 1995 that predicted no warming from 1995 to 2010? None of which I am aware.
And as we know from Bjorn Lomberg, many environemntal indicators are improving, not spinning out of control.
In spite of this it looks like the Senate is shaping up to try to solve a problem that has not been proven to exist and introduce some kind of cap and trade bill. Nuts.
-
James, I was going to read your post, but previous models strongly indicated that it's not worth my time.
-
James, I was going to read your post, but previous models strongly indicated that it's not worth my time.
Kyle, to save you the trouble I will paraphrase "Everybody was on drugs in 1970"
-
Until some one *proves* that James is not recycling hot air, I'm afraid I can't take anything he says seriously.
-
C'mon guys, you can't fault his sources:
Newsweek magazine
Life magazine
Look magazine
Mademoiselle magazineand ten, carefully chosen quotes taken out of context and without links, does after represent the sum total of all global scientific study and understanding of the climate at the time.
I guess, in the face of that, to quote James, skepticism is the only rational approach.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.