More idiocy from the team at Hot Topic

 

 

As readers of Investigate will now be aware, the submissions to the ETS select committee of one Gareth Renowden, truffle farmer, South Island have been published.

Here's a salient extract from the latest Investigate magazine:

The political lobby group Oxfam, which may also stand to benefit from greater UN NGO funding if emissions schemes go ahead, is another urging the New Zealand government to immediately combat the perils of climate change.

“We must take urgent international action - now- to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to help poor countries adapt to the likely impacts of global climate change. Rich countries with high per capita emissions, like New Zealand, produce most of the greenhouse gases.”

Except, as we’ve seen, New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions are tiny.

Then there’s South Island truffle fancier Gareth Renowden, an “immediate past president of the NZ Truffle Association” and self-appointed ‘expert’ on human-caused climate change, who in March had told one tribunal:

“Action to restrict emissions in NZ will have no discernible impact on climate change in either NZ or the globe.”

But despite this glaring admission, Renowden made a submission to the parliamentary committee saying:

“Emissions reductions in NZ will need to mirror those of our key trading partners, whatever our local circumstances.”

That could be interpreted as good news, because Australia has shelved its emissions trading scheme in the meantime.

Renowden’s key line of reasoning appears to be that even though the US and Europe have created most of the CO2 emissions, that New Zealand should shoulder a much bigger burden than we’re responsible for so as “we are seen to be playing our part”.

The costs to New Zealand families of bearing this extra burden, says Renowden, are nothing compared to the costs of global warming.

To justify his claim, Renowden then tells Parliament’s ETS committee:

“Recent indications are that the pace of climate change has speeded up. Summer sea ice decline in the Arctic has been steep in recent years, ice mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica has increased, and expert views on likely sea level rise over the course of this century now run from lm upwards.”

Unfortunately, Renowden’s testimony was out of date before he even delivered it, as this extract from the journal Science three months earlier embarrassingly reveals.

“Ice loss in Greenland has had some climatologists speculating that global warming might have brought on a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever faster rise in sea level. But glaciologists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that Greenland ice’s Armageddon has come to an end,” reported Science.

If this stunning revelation had only been published a week before Renowden’s April submission, you could overlook the error. But this report dated all the way back to January.

“‘It has come to an end,’ glaciologist Tavi Murray of Swansea University in the United Kingdom said during a session at the meeting. ‘There seems to have been a synchronous switch-off’ of the speed-up, she said. Nearly everywhere around southeast Greenland, outlet glacier flows have returned to the levels of 2000…no one should be extrapolating the ice’s recent wild behavior into the future.”

As for sea level increases of “1m upwards”, Renowden was also dumped on by a series of studies published last year and whose findings are in the book Air Con.

“For Greenland alone to raise sea level by two metres by 2100, all of the outlet glaciers involved would need to move more than three times faster than the fastest outlet glaciers ever observed, or more than 70 times faster than they presently move,” reported Colorado scientist, Tad Pfeffer,  in a joint Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research/Scripps Institute of Oceanography study published in September last year. “And they would have to start moving that fast today, not 10 years from now. It is a simple argument with no fancy physics.”

So how much is Greenland currently melting, after the “hottest” period in recent history?

“It is now estimated that Greenland is accountable for a half millimeter rise in global sea level per year,” Air Con quotes one recent scientific study taken before the ice Armageddon suddenly stopped. For the uninitiated, at its peak melt Greenland would have contributed 50 millimetres to global sea level rise by the end of this century, or roughly two inches.

As for Antarctica melting, which Renowden referred to, latest satellite data (cited in Air Con) shows Antarctic sea ice at record levels and scientists admit the ice continent is mostly cooling, and cooling quite rapidly.

And what about Renowden’s assurances to the select committee that “experts” were agreed we were heading for sea level increases of a metre or more?

“Sea level rise is not only seen in the record, but is accelerating,” said the truffle farmer, whose knowledge of climate change has been praised by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Well, according to the latest satellite data from the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason 1 missions published in late 2008, despite the 2000s being the hottest decade in recent memory according to Renowden’s 2009 testimony, the rate of sea level increase has dropped by 30%, from 3mm a year down to 2mm a year since 2005, or 20cm for the entire century if extrapolated out – a slow down, not an acceleration, in rising sea levels.

The irony is that Renowden had told the select committee that they should expect high standards from submitters:

“I think the committee might like to reflect upon the factual accuracy expected of those making submissions. It is of course perfectly proper for a submitter to offer an opinion upon any matter related to the committee’s remit, but I have to suggest that when it comes to matters of fact the committee should hold submitters to a suitable standard of evidential accuracy.”

Comments

[Iwi's hart.]

1. You quote your own magazine article and your own book constantly. Lame. Can you cite anyone else's work Ian?

2. Some nice quote mining there. Although your syncophants who just as terrified of the "New World Order" may buy it, normal people wont.

Here is another part to that article you quoted:

Not that Greenland's ice is safe, says Alley. "If you turn the thermostat too high, it will melt," he notes. And the glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), some of which have already picked up speed, don't have the shallow rocky underpinnings that allow Greenland's glaciers to regain their equilibrium. "With nothing to hold on to," he says, "we think [WAIS] will run away."

And from the second article you quoted:

The team also used assessments of the world's small glacier and ice cap contributions to sea level rise calculated by a CU-Boulder team and published in Science in July 2007. That study indicated small glaciers and ice caps contribute about 60 percent of the world's ice to oceans at present, a percentage that is accelerating.

Considering all major sources of sea level rise, including Greenland, Antarctica, smaller glaciers and ice caps and the thermal expansion of water, the team's most likely estimate of roughly 3 to 6 feet by 2100 is still potentially devastating to huge areas of the world in low-lying coastal areas, said Pfeffer.

Some scientists have theorized that continuing warming trends in Greenland and Antarctica could warm the Earth by 4 degrees F over the present by 2100. The last time that happened, roughly 125,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, glacier changes raised sea level by 12 to 20 feet or more. But the time scale is poorly constrained and may have required millennia, Pfeffer said.

"In my opinion, some of the research out there calling for 20 or 30 feet of sea rise by the end of the century is not backed up by solid glaciological evidence," said Pfeffer.

Policymakers need to be able to predict sea level accurately if communities, cities and countries around the world are going to be able to plan effectively, Pfeffer said. "If we plan for 6 feet and only get 2 feet, for example, or visa versa, we could spend billions of dollars of resources solving the wrong problems."

[Trent]

Fairly obvious you haven't actually read Air Con, iwis.

It has more than 400 referenced footnotes and cites.

Wishart devotes some considerable space to Arctic and Antarctica "melt", and from what I can see has quoted thoroughly in context.

The rate of sea level rise has decreased, and the "thermostat" is winding down at present.

And have we managed to establish that Antarctic Peninsula and WAIS "warming" is CO2 related, rather than natural?

Didn't think so.

[Iwi's hart.]

Ian quotes two articles that contradict his opinion in this particular blog.

How do we know that he doesn't use quote mining tactics in his book?

Anyone can take over 400 articles out of context.

Can you give me some primary literature to assert you claims that climate change isn't happening Trent?
Thanks

[Shane Ponting]

Yeah good one, prove a negative.

Talk about a broken record..........

[Iwi's hart.]

You are either claiming that the Earth is cooling- which would need a valid, supported theory. Or that CO2, which under normal circumstances should create a greenhouse effect, isn't causing one.

So, sources?

[Shane Ponting]

Time to [/b] turn off the bold type.

[Shane Ponting]

oops this is html not bb code,

[Shane Ponting]

testing.......

[Shane Ponting]

damn subordinating code, we need to fix the templates Ian....

[peter]

Ian, you say:

' Then there’s South Island truffle fancier Gareth Renowden, an “immediate past president of the NZ Truffle Association” and self-appointed ‘expert’ on human-caused climate change, '

Exactly who appointed YOU an expert on climate change Ian?

[Trent]

I'm unaware of any argument that climate change is not happening iwis. Can you show me where I said that?

[Iwi's hart.]

Trent: So you accept that long-term climate change is happening?

What mechanism do you think is causing it?

Perhaps greenhouse gases? Which cause the greenhouse effect? Of which humans have emitted a significant amount of into the atmosphere.

Or do you doubt the physical properties of carbon dioxide, the amount of CO2 emitted by humans or the data that show the recent rise in atmospheric CO2?

[Trent]

Again, iwis, the case is admirably made in Air Con based on the peer-reviewed papers...there is good scientific evidence that aerosols, oceanic and solar variations are having a much greater impact on climate than CO2 emissions. You really should read the book before shooting off at the mouth.

Ian explains that the behaviour of CO2 in enclosed environments (ie, laboratory tests or greenhouses) - whilst well documented, does not exactly match the behaviour of CO2 in the wild where heat can and does escape to space because Earth has no roof.

The radiative forcings are a physical property that exist inside or out, but the relative effects inside and out are different. Greenhouses don't have convective towers, holes in the roof, large bodies of ice et etc.

Air Con points out that the rise in CO2 coincides with the widespread deforestation of the late 19th cnetury as land was cleared for farms and towns, meaning that surplus CO2 both natural and human-caused couldn't be as swiftly soaked up again.

I repeat what I said yesterday, iwis...if you haven't read Air Con then you're kind of arguing straw men that don't exist.

[AcidComments]

"Some scientists have theorized"

That sums it up!

It's just theory.

Much of which doesn't stack up in the 'real world'. Playing with pretend computer models! And that's coming from other scientists!

[Iwi's hart.]

Trent:
I'm not going to waste my time reading BS conspiracy theories by someone who thinks that ID is a challenge to evolution. I'd rather read actual, peer reviewed scientific reports myself.

Tell me, what scientific articles does Ian cite anyway? I'll look them up myself, and see I come to the same conclusions as he does.

BTW, deforestation emits CO2- of course it is a cause of CC. Guess who causes deforestation?
People.

Oh, and your lack of understanding of chemistry/physics/climatology is showing. I suggest you read something other than Ian Wishart books.

[robk]

Iwi

Buy your own copy of Ian's book, Air Con. You don't have to read it - just go to all the references at the bottom of the pages :-)

You will then have references to actual, peer reviewed scientific articles. Different ones, and likely more recent than some of the rubbish dished up to us daily elsewhere.

I've read it, and am satisfied that the general thrust of Air Con is right on the button.

[peter]

Rob K

It is the interpretation of Ian to the works of others that I have often questioned.

[robk]

Fair enough. I have not chased up all the references, but i'd expect his opponents will have a go. Book makes sense to me, even has a possible motive for all the AGW hype...

[ropata]

bold off now?
:)

[ropata]

bold off now?
:)