Posts by HenryB
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Capture: Autumn lite, in reply to kalypso,
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Kalypso. That's a stunning picture.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Farmer Green,
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Attributed to the IPCC here:
Press Release
You mean attributed to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, don't you?
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to Russell Brown,
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That Economist story is interesting and thorough. Nevil Gibson in NBR shouting about climate change “myths” being “exposed” is just noise.
Skeptical science has an interesting discussion of the Economist story.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
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Comments from the British Met office:
"Q.1 `First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.'
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. If you use a longer period from HadCRUT4 the trend looks very different. For example, 1979 to 2011 shows 0.16°C/decade (or 0.15°C/decade in the NCDC dataset, 0.16°C/decade in GISS). Looking at successive decades over this period, each decade was warmer than the previous – so the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s were warmer than both. Eight of the top ten warmest years have occurred in the last decade.
Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8ºC. However, within this record there have been several periods lasting a decade or more during which temperatures have risen very slowly or cooled. The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual."
From here for those interested.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to mccx,
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Action on reducing emissions is not so simple as having the individuals who accept the reality of climate change changing their behaviour. The climate issue is fundamentally a social, political and technological problem. Reducing global emissions is a collective action problem. Behavioural changes will of course be a part of this, but a minority of individuals making moderate changes in their daily routine isn’t a solution. Expecting that individuals to drastically alter their lives before we take the climate issue seriously is both counter-productive and misunderstands the nature of the problem.
Couldn't agree more. Naomi Klein speaks to the issue of `personalising' the climate change debate with Bill Moyers here.
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Tim Murphy's editorial says:
"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.
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Hard News: Triangulated by Fools, in reply to Russell Brown,
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Wilson thinks Shearer’s speech was what it was because he was angry about Cunliffe
I look forward to reading the whole profile but I think it would sad if what Wilson thinks is true: I'd have felt better if "it was what it was" because he was angry with the National Government and John Key...and that is the way I interpreted it when I first heard it - except for the brief comment about focusing on the ambitions of New Zealanders "rather than our own".
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Hard News: Calling the race before it's over, in reply to Paul Williams,
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trying to discpline and not just demote
My apologies: the distinction I was trying to make was the implication that an expulsion was being sought rather just than a demotion - which I guess is a kind of discipline. I have to say, like Lucy, all this talk of whips and discipline seems a little odd, though I know it perhaps has its place, but in this context where it is an issue of the democratic process within the party that is at issue then it seems really inappropriate: Hipkins, in my view, was trying to bully Cunliffe and others to commit to saying how they would vote in February.
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Hard News: Calling the race before it's over, in reply to Barnard,
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That seems to be driven far more by a desire to get it sorted once and for all,
But isn't that a sort of bullying?
I don't get it: Cunliffe has said Shearer will get his vote if there is vote on the issue of leadership in the next couple of weeks. Between his comments at the Conference and this morning he clearly must have done the math - as it said - and guaged his chances as low.
Quite rightly, when asked about next February's vote, Cunliffe says he doesn't know. I would have hoped all intelligent MPs would have said the same. If the February vote is to mean anything then it is a time for the leadership issue to be addressed again afresh.
For me, this hasn't been about Shearer versus Cunliffe. It has been about Shearer versus Key. And, until the Conference speech, Shearer had done nothing to convince me that he was winning the contest of getting a Labour view across in any context - let alone on the floor of debating chamber. The conference speech showed that in certain contexts he can and the speech was, for me, good to hear. But will this new found voice translate into more agonistic contexts?
Of course, Shearer could demote Cunliffe for not saying now how he'd vote next February. That's his privilege. But trying to discpline and not just demote a caucus member, something that Chris Hipkins seems to be implying, for exercising his rights would be really worrying.
As far as the media are concerned, it really has been a truly confusing picture that has emerged - and I share the regret of many that so much of substance has been ignored in pursuit of a horse race story.
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Hard News: Party on, dudes, in reply to Jolisa,
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And then when PA System came along, the discussions became broader and noisier and funnier and more controversial and social and different and exciting and always educational. So much discussion!
Noisy, funny, controversial, social, different, exciting, educational - says it all and says it for me. Congratulations RB and all.