Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
It seems that you believe too much of what you read. The science of climate continues to develop, and there is no reason for despair.
Actually, recent news suggests there is cause to be very, very concerned.
On what actual basis do you say we shouldn't be worried about the probably irreversible release of methane from Arctic permafrost?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rod Snowdon,
As someone who has avidly read Public Address from the outset but only very rarely made the time and effort to contribute to the discussions, I distinctly remember bringing up very similar concerns 10-15 years ago in a response to Russell on a Public Address post about GMOs in agriculture.
And yet Bart, a New Zealand scientist who is standing emphatically behind Mike Joy in this discussion, would have a very vigorous discussion with you on the issue of GMOs. Frankly, if our protocols on waste and waterways were as robust as our controls on GM research, the place would be in better shape. But I don't actually accept the two are even in the same category.
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Hard News: This is your public broadcasting, in reply to LIISA,
Also (as a super duper Broadcasting policy geek) I found this to be the really exciting NZoA release of the week:
Online Rights and Public Access: A Discussion PaperFor sure. I'd have included it in this post if I'd actually had time to read it.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Bart Janssen,
But the editorial still claims that Dr Joy’s comments about the environment are inappropriate, suggesting either he is wrong (he isn’t) or he’s not qualified to talk about the environment in general (he is) or that we shouldn’t talk about that sort of thing because it might make us look bad (really?).
I know. But it doesn’t hurt for me to address a criticism of my own work.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to HenryB,
“the Prime Minister made the very reasonable comment that compared with the rest of the world, New Zealand was 100 per cent Pure”
Isn’t this like saying that grey is actually white compared to black? Sounds like Fox News science to me.
The original Key quote is even more mathematically impossible. He adds a "for the most part" qualifier at the beginning to match the one on the end.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Tim Murphy’s editorial says:
I’m not even sure it’s Tim Murphy. It sounded far more like a certain long bow drawer who just happens to be on the Press Council.
Tim says it's not Roughan (who, let's face it, was the raging favourite with the bookies) and Fran says it's not her. I don't think it's Tim.
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The editor-in-chief of the Herald, Tim Murphy, had a complaint about the original post:
I see on your blog you say the editorial ‘repeatedly accuses Joy of deliberately “exaggerating” and “overstating” problems with New Zealand’s contaminated waterways and declares that “such overstatement is the stuff of advertising, not academic observation.”
But the editorial said no such thing about contaminated waterways. Not once. Therefore not ’repeatedly.’ No, we commented on his broad brush ‘clean and green’ and ‘100% pure” commentaries. Not water. We noted tourists’ shock at seeing that rivers are unsafe for swimming. The editorial in general assessed his judgment on whether we have ‘pristine environments’ and on our ‘environmental record’. He wasn’t just talking water or waterways. Nor were we. And that’s the point. So we can’t, no matter how you pitch it, be criticised by you for dissing his water expertise or studies.
I’m happy to acknowledge this is true so far as it goes. The editorial refers to tourists finding rivers unsafe for swimming, and not “contaminated waterways” per se. I would also point out that a river is a waterway.
And yes, the editorial otherwise referred to Joy’s comments on New Zealand’s environmental performance in general, rather than on water specifically. I’m not sure this makes a great deal of difference, but I was not strictly correct in saying “waterways” and am happy to make the correction. I have annotated the original post thus.
Edit: I should also note, in case anyone's confused, that the comment Tim is referring to -- "We don't deserve 100 per cent Pure, we are nowhere near the best in the world, we are not even in the top half of countries in the world when it comes to clean and green." -- didn't appear in the NYT/IHT story. They were given to a Herald reporter who called Joy after that story appeared -- the editorial writer misread the Herald's own story and misattributed to them to the NYT/IHT original.
Also, on the basis of the PLoS study, what Joy said about New Zealand's general performance relative to other countries is true. As Mike noted above, it wouldn't be true of waterways alone.
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Hard News: This is your public broadcasting, in reply to ,
You're back! Hello!
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I don’t know anywhere that a conscious, government directed industrial policy has succeeded long term.
The chaebol of South Korea would seem to fit the bill. Samsung, LG and Hyundai were actively supported and financed by their government for a long time. There was a fairly severe reckoning with the Asian debt crisis, but the winners amongst them won very big.
It's possible that industry development works best when you're actually industrialising, but I don't think it's tenable to say there are no success stories.
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Peter Griffin has a useful post noting that when the Science Media Centre collected up expert opinion on government water quality initiatives, Mike Joy was not an outlier.
The issue seems to be less our absolute position compared to other countries, but the trend, especially with respect to water resources.