Amongst the intelligent discourse about the article (something like 95% of it "authoritatively" debunking climate change), is this comment:

"Claudio #160 10:37 am Dec 11 2009
It's quite impossible to have carbon emissions here in Welly,…

I'm not surprised Australian politics steers away from sustainability. Most of their economy is founded on mining.

I would expect that people, who have to deal with environmental issues for economic reasons would be quiete keen on limiting the impact these activities have.

30 years ago you could get a bursary which was almost enough to live on. Only about a third of current students get an equivalent now. The comparison between those who changed the rules in the late 80s and 90s (many of whom got…

It's that the fake threat of global warming is damaging local retailers this Christmas not the, you know, recession, while those dodgy climate scientists in East Anglia are getting off lightly compared to Tiger Woods. Does any of this make sense? Of course not.

And the New Zealand cricket team,…

That doesn't even have a topic. If he's going to be foolishly wrong, can he at least be it about one thing at once, rather than six unconnected rambles?

Oh, he has a topic all right. It's that the fake threat of global warming is damaging local retailers this Christmas…

Actually, there already is a Crafarms of both the above...

Filmed in New Zealand, too. Possibly the only film starring both Bruno Lawrence and John Ratzenberger.

I despair.

That doesn't even have a topic. If he's going to be foolishly wrong, can he at least be it about one thing at once, rather than six unconnected rambles?

Kyle: check the costs and the necessary distance from the house for a worthwhile sized windmill.

Cheers for that, interesting. Solar water heating it is.

Actually, it was never free. I went to the University of Canterbury for 4 terms, and then I had to quit. I couldnt afford the…

(Warning: contains hazardous levels of Jim Hopkins)

How do we change an exploitative dominance-prone xenophobic not-fully-rational homonim- with a severely limited life span – into

something else?

Or accept that this human nature thing is actually human nature and work with it to save the planet.

Perhaps we could tax rich people more than poor people. Taxing…

Thanks Andrew C for the link to the Willis Eschenbach blog, with all the bollocks about the Darwin temperature records. What a nutter. I skimmed through some of the comments, and was slightly appalled…

Thanks George- wasn't meaning to be snarky.

No problems, it wasn't taken that way!

Micro-wind can be very worthwhile, when used appropriately. But giving every suburban home owner large amounts of money in the form of subsidies, rebates, or other instruments would be a waste of time.

That would be surprising. How much energy does it take to produce a wind turbine?

I was thinking of this article, which talks about lifetime CO2, rather than lifetime energy, which is different.

"These studies have shown a large variation in the expected CO2 payback periods from a few months…

humans have ALWAYS trashed their environments: it's part of us as a species. How do we change minds? I rather suspect that *this* is the essential factor (and it's been hinted at all through this…

Actually, it was never free. I went to the University of Canterbury for 4 terms, and then I had to quit. I couldnt afford the textbooks any more, and I couldnt afford the living expenses or other fees (and…

wasn't Project Aqua going to be a dam on the Lower Waitaki not anywhere near the Cook Strait cable......

The Inter-island HVDC link of which the Cook Strait cable is part runs from Benmore Dam to Haywards in the Hutt Valley. It transmits power at higher efficiency than conventional AC…

You missed out that the baby boomers had free university education ...

Bastards.

I had to work really hard to cut my stream of vitriol down in terms of content and anger... I still feel bad I ranted on for so long...!

So I cut out / down on education,…

Many such turbines have more energy used in their construction than they generate in a typical lifetime.

That would be surprising. How much energy does it take to produce a wind turbine?

payback period is over decades

–
Wind turbines have become a lot cheaper recently. Siting is certainly an…

The proposed Aqua system was going to be close to the existing HVDC link across the Cook Strait to the Hutt Valley.

wasn't Project Aqua going to be a dam on the Lower Waitaki not anywhere near the Cook Strait cable......

Why not ping them with ACC hikes instead of…

Totally agree George but look out for the screams of "nanny state PC gone mad" if there's any kind of regulation or disincentive from the govt regarding people's right to fill the suburban streets with their SUVs

Why not ping them with ACC hikes instead of bikers? SUV's are the…

Unfortunately, the main article is not online, but apparently his grid electricity consumption is now zero, and he has made a small profit ($11) selling electricity back to the energy company.

Unfortunately, he may not be granted planning permission for…

Project Aqua was the wrong plan and in the wrong place. More power production should be established closer to end-users.

Ok, where's your evidence for that statement?

The proposed Aqua system was going to be close to the existing HVDC link across the Cook Strait to the Hutt Valley. HVDC…

Perhaps David Haywood (if I remember this is his area of expertise) can answer why we're not being encouraged to put small windmills on our properties more. I know there was a failed attempt to subsidise solar water heating, is that a more efficient use of money than mini windmills…

If you do that,…

Project Aqua was the wrong plan and in the wrong place. More power production should be established closer to end-users.

Perhaps David Haywood (if I remember this is his area of expertise) can answer why we're not being encouraged to put small windmills on our properties more. I know there…

and the current govt's utter contempt for walkers, cyclists and public transport – we need support to get out of our cars (via infrastructure) and somehow I don't think Stephen Joyce is the man to see that happen

I don't see anyone in Parliament who could make it happen, actually.…

not to mention the resistance to increased density housing and metropolitan urban limits…

By far the majority of our energy consumption is fuel and we can't fix that with windfarms as beautiful as they are.

We can however fix it with zero emissions vehicles.

I have one, and it costs me almost nothing to run. Already 35% of all trips are made by…

I can't believe that the same arguments are being had, over, and over, and over again, a decade later.

Climate change from coal burning was first predicted in the 1880's, it's pretty basic science. Back then they just didn't imagine anyone would burn coal quite this quickly.

Regardless, they're not…

Ah, it's not the sea-level rise, the world is sinking!

Not /everything/ is climate change. Coral atolls only exist because they're on a sinking plate (all oceanic plates sink as they spread out from the central ridge, getting denser as they age), and storm surges will be markedly worse on…

Oh wait, I think we tried to do that....

I first became properly aware…

Our moon is -233 C in the shade, and +123 C in the sun, -55 C on average. Our atmosphere, and the darker surface, makes us about 65 C warmer on average than the moon, and 33 C of that warming is because…

I think some caution is warranted, because these are a largely unproven technology, and thus their…

I like the cartoon in Kyle's link.

NZ's just as bad. We continue to run coal and gas fired power plants because of the naive belief that nuclear energy = bad.

Well not quite as bad (far from it really). We generate only about 30% of our power from coal and gas where as Australia generates over…

I would name Nick Smith, the PM John Key, Bill English, Gerry Brownlee in the first category. As far as I can tell, they…

Does that mean we can start actually building wind farms rather than refusing to because it's too ugly?

Facebook groups will fix that: Put a windfarm in my backyard if you like, because I'm not an idiot.

Does that mean we can start actually building wind farms rather than refusing to because it's too ugly? I know wind is not a consistent source, but at the least it would allow us to run those coal and gas plants less.

Don't forget hydro, Project Aqua was scuttled too.

If Roland Emmerich tells us so, it must be right, right?

The neutrinos are causing... a physical reaction!

Ah, it's not the sea-level rise, the world is sinking!

If Roland Emmerich tells us so, it must be right, right?

Lack of expertise, scale, nuclear waste, cost, and NZ actually having enough renewable power to run the damn country are the other ones.

Does that mean we can start…

There are umpteen reasons why NZ doesn't have nuclear power. Public opinion is one of them. Lack of expertise, scale, nuclear waste, cost, and NZ actually having enough renewable power to run the damn country are the other ones.

Agreed. IMO the environmentalists won't put the brakes on nuclear energy,…

nuke stations are simply not built any more, and havnt been for ages, including by countries without any anti-nuke dogma.

Apart from the UK, where louder and louder noises have been made by the govt about building a whole bunch of new nuke power plants.

This is in spite of…

On Checkpoint this evening, I heard it being theorised that Tuvalu was now suffering from island-sweeping storm surges because tectonic activity was making it sink, rather than because sea levels were rising. Now that's some impressive circumlocution of the problem.

Ah, it's not the sea-level rise, the world is sinking!…

NZ's just as bad. We continue to run coal and gas fired power plants because of the naive belief that nuclear energy = bad. While I can understand "No Nukes" in the dirty-bomb sense of the word, extending that to power is just outright silly.

Unfortunately nukes are bad for…

Can anyone suggest some good web links with (fairly) un-deniable authority, to which people can be pointed?

This is from the David Suzuki Foundation – the whole website is quite interesting.

Climate Change Science Skeptics

Can anyone suggest some good web links with (fairly) un-deniable authority, to which people can be pointed?

For an easily approchable site try Tim Lambert|Deltoid, he helps pick apart deniers claims. He has been covering global warming for a very long time, you might want to read through…

Brian Easton is a bit scathing about Thomson's work and as usefully detailed as you'd expect. I must find time to re-read that whole article.

sorry for multiple short postings – just wanted to say that the story of stuff clip has been fantastic for showing my Year 9 and 10 Social Science classes. It has provoked much interest, discussion and questioning.

The 'cap and trade' clip is a recent addition…

http://www.storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

To be fair, the negative responses in the blog are pretty mild, unless Gio deleted a bunch that I missed. But he did speak of receiving personally targeted hate mail, which sounded quite nasty.

I didn't have to delete anything from the blog, all the gutter stuff was sent via…

I'm not surprised Australian politics steers away from sustainability. Most of their economy is founded on mining. It's like expecting the oil rich nations of the Middle East to advocate cutting back on oil consumption.

And it's not just minerals; read the chapter in Jared Diamond's "Collapse" on Australia's farming…

By the curious standard of the GDP, the nation's economic hero is a terminal cancer patient that is going through a costly divorce. The happiest event is an earthquake or a hurricane. All these add to GDP, because they cause money to…

Witness the vicious responses to Giovanni's blog post about Richard Gage and the 9/11 truthers.

To be fair, the negative responses in the blog are pretty mild, unless Gio deleted a bunch that I missed. But he did speak of receiving personally targeted hate mail, which sounded quite nasty.

The problem for the West is that the West’s economy is based on energy wastage. Therefore, most of the current energy strategies are aimed at continuing this wastage using different technologies. That’s…

Oh, and it…

You're right of course – showing people where they are wrong has never been popular.

Witness the vicious responses to Giovanni's blog post about Richard Gage and the 9/11 truthers.

I guess any hope that denial types will give credence to any source which is actually reliable, even the most well-recognised bodies like IPCC, or NASA is probably in vain anyway.

I have a Very Republican Cousin in the USA who forwards me thousands of ridiculous emails containing the talking…

Thanks Danielle. I had actually found that page at some point previously too. It's just that people with denialist-fever don't seem to recognise the difference between a smart science website like scepticalscience,…

is it guilt, embarrassment, or what?

And how do you counter it?

Metafilter linked to this recently, which might help.

Just sayin' =)

ref: Articles 26 and 28 of the Third Geneva Convention

Do you want ordinary law-abiding non-violent people subject to less rights than Prisoners of War?

Shame, hiss, booo, etc.

=)

Where are people getting this stuff?

Here

I've recently had a number of friends and co-workers tell me that climate change is either not happening, or not man-made, and basically infer that anyone with a brain knows that it's all…

Why can they not just say "we didn't know?"

Because that would go against the grain of self aggrandising arrogance which their quali'y edjamacation bestowed upon them. Actually, human ego, funny thing, even without the posh schooling.

Good ideas are first: flatly denied, second: ridiculed, and third: accepted as common…

Somehow they've made a decision that this approach is 'best for us' and they will win an election on Climate Change and then tell us all what to do. It's hard not to really really hate them. They are so WRONG in every sense.

Often what it comes down to…

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/02/death-denial/

It disgusts me.

Deniers disgust me too, but they're a minor annoyance and easily dealt with by presenting evidence to the general public.

And now these old bastards are trying to do it to us again:

Some rich old bastards are trying to do something, some psychotics would use climate…

Let me tell you a little story about a bloke I met in Singapore once.

To set the scene: this was 1999, I was there on some IT business and we were in an expensive bar with a business colleague…

Who do you believe?
Ian Wishart – 77%
Gareth Morgan – 23%

I didn't know we were allowed to vote on science now? Y'know I've always thought that whole "electricity" thing was a bit of a have, let's take a poll!

So he blogs that:

They just make this stuff up and expect the gullible to believe…

You know we actually can fix it. We'll probably get kinda grubby in the process but most jobs that are worth doing get you covered in muck at some point.

And after you've showered and got yourself clean, the glass of wine tastes all that much better…