Posts by Idiot Savant
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Hamboy: yes. And proliferation too. But its looking very much like those are the lesser evils (and it helps greatly that the Europeans actualy know how to run a nuclear power program - unlike the Americans, who only know how to cut corners for higher profits).
What is it in these bull-headed old men that prevents them from absorbing knowledge?
Rigor mortis. Alternatively, constipation. No room for new ideas, because they're already full of old ones.
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Yes, it seems that some of the scientists with informed objections are paleoclimatologists and geologists, but there seem to be valid rebuttals to their arguments. I'm clearly in no position to adjudicate there.
Well, they're right that we have long-term variability in the climate system - but the degree of warming we are seeing now is well outside the range (as are atmospheric CO2 levels). There was a very memorable demonstration of this in "An Inconvenient Truth",and if you want it without the showmanship, I suggest Peter Barrett's Will Unchecked Global Warming Destroy Civilisation by Century’s End? What Three Degrees of Global Warming Really Means (PDF). It makes it very clear that current warming is against the trend of the last 80 million years, and that current projections will see us getting an average global temperature not seen for 40 million years.
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If European energy policy ends up as a drive towards nuclear energy at all costs I can't help feeling that an opportunity will have been lost.
Frankly, I'd rather the Europeans (and Americans, and Australians, and Chinese) burned uranium than coal. Meanwhile I'm also glad that we have no need to.
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81stcolumn: the UK already has hard policy - they participate inthe ETS, have a low-level carbon tax, various efficiency programs, and a renewables obligation for electricity companies. And they've achieved fantastic results, mainly by switching from old coal generation to newer and more efficient (and cleaner) gas. What they're arguing about is whether to get harder, by making airlines pay for emissions, increase carbon taxes, or tighten regulation on efficiency.
There's a peception here (promoted by the deniers) that if NZ acted on climate change, we would be leading the world. We wouldn't. Much of Europe left us in the dust ten years ago, the first time the government backed down on a carbon tax.
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For those who are wondering where the piece on election funding is, it's here
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Robyn: if you find the ads obnoxious, just get adblock. Enf of problem. I don't even know they're there.
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David: Sure - but OTOH, it's net CO2-equivalent emissions which matter, not carbon content. Carbon Dioxide is the greenhouse gas we have the most control over (well, according to farmers; I say we can always fight methane emissions with bullets, or rather BBQs) - but it is not the be all and end all, and focusing solely on it will not solve our emissions problem.
WRT carbon neutrality, OK, you're probably right that Clark was aiming a little higher. But I think its also important to stress the long-term nature of the goal. The suggestions around stationary energy basically involve slowly replacing, upgrading, and retiring to reserve our thermal generation capacity over the course of the normal capital cycle. And it will be the same with transport - enacting policies which see our emissions minimised, and then eventually moving to offset what remains. Fundamentally, this is about pathways, not a demand that we start planting trees for everything, tomorrow. Whether its (temporarily, because I know land is finite) feasible really depends on how low we can get our emissions before we start planting trees, and what other tricks we can pull (for example, using Peter Read's suggestion for biosequestration, which is actually rather cool. We should start planting some trees for that now, BTW, on the basis that if the technology isn't accepted, then we always have a carbon sink).
Don:
I am sure that the Government will be vilified over time for failing to met targets, empty rhetoric etc. etc.
Well, they certainly wouldn't be doing any worse than any previous government here. But I'm actually rather optimistic about policy ATM - the Business Council for Sustainable Development have won the argument in the business sector, and there's a fair amount of policy from below. We should see at least something implemented, which puts us in a better position policywise than any time since 1995.
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the vast majority of our man-made atmospheric carbon emissions are due to energy use
Um, no. if you go to the effort of checking the latest inventory report, you'll see that the vast majority of man-made atmospheric carbon emissions are due to farmers. For those who don't want to wade through, the agricultural sector contributed 32.12 megatonnes CO2-equivalent in 2004; the (non-transport) energy sector contributed 14.78, and transport 8.88. Of course, this makes the problem worse.
And OTOH as a dedicated reader of cabinet papers on the issue, I've always understood this to mean carbon neutral stationary energy, as suggested in the "way ahead" paper back in December last year:
"In energy it may be appropriate to set a goal for levels of (non-transport) renewable energy – even going 100% renewable or carbon neutral in a long term timeframe. This could be progressed through the developing National Energy Strategy."
This goal isn't insurmountable, and in the timeframe suggested, basically amounts to the slow retirement of thermal generation or the offsetting of its emissions. The perfect policy tool to do this BTW is emissions trading with a sinking cap.
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Judith Tizard played Werewolf?
Maybe we can get her to play some real LARP sometime...
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I visited someone with a Wii over the weekend, and I can see the attraction in the interface. But they really need a lightsaber or sword for hack and slash games.
I also now have a Mii, wandering around Wellington, mingling at random. I'm sure that's dodgy somehow.