An Advisory to the West Coast Regional Council

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In July last year (2018), the West Council Regional Council announced in a submission to the Ministry for the Environment that they would not be supporting the Coalition Government’s proposed Zero Carbon Bill. The Council stated;

The West Coast Regional Council (WCRC or ‘the Council’) does not support the Zero Carbon Bill (ZCB) as it creates too much uncertainty for the West Coast region. There are too many unknowns that arise from this discussion document to gain the Councils support. Further, the discussion document has not presented the science behind the proposed bill. We suggest the science that underpins the ZCB should be clearly discussed and summarised in order for the layperson to understand and potentially accept it. Climate change is a very complex issue and to ask the people of the West Coast to commit to an emissions target (and accept the subsequent adverse effects discussed below), the evidence proving anthropogenic climate change must be presented and proven beyond reasonable doubt.

The statement was repeated further on in the submission;

While the framework of the ZCB appears to be well-intentioned the science behind the bill and Anthropogenic climate change needs to be presented and proven beyond reasonable doubt.

The West Council Regional Council’s submission was reported on 29 January this year;

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

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Unfortunately for the Council, it juxtaposed with the same week that soaring temperatures hit Australia and New Zealand;

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It was simply bad luck for climate change deniers on the West Coast Regional Council that their submission was made public the same week that data revealed January 2019 as the hottest month since records began in 1909;

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The data was obtained by New Zealand’s own research organisation, NIWA, with the organisation’s climate scientist, Gregor Macara, stating;

“It was unusual that the entire country seemed to observe temperatures that weren’t only above average, but really considerably above average.”

NIWA obtains it’s data from a range of advanced scientific instruments;

Partnering with NOAA, NIWA is not short on a wealth of climate data gathered by sophisticated devices and skilled, dedicated scientists. It may be an over-used cliche, but New Zealand “punches above it’s weight” on climate science.

This is the information which the West Council Regional Council laments that it lacks;

“We must be objective and base our decisions on science and that’s why we want the science presented really simply; we don’t have climate change experts on our staff so we just want everyone to understand it.”

There are processes that the Council can go through to be briefed on climate change and better informed.

In fact, the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MoBIE) provides an Envirolink Grant which is specifically designed  “to provide regional councils with advice and research on environmental projects”;

The funding available

Funding of $1.6 million (excluding GST) is available each year for Crown research institutes, universities and private research organisations to provide regional councils with advice and research on environmental projects.

Envirolink funding is invested through 3 on-demand processes:

  • a Small Advice grant to provide councils with initial expert advice on proposed environmental research
  • a Medium Advice grant to provide more detailed advice
  • a Tools Development grant to fund the development of environmental management tools for councils.

Those eligible are listed on the MoBIE website;

Who can apply 

The following regional councils and unitary authorities are currently eligible to apply for Envirolink support via the small and medium advice grants:

  • Northland Regional Council
  • Gisborne District Council
  • Hawkes Bay Regional Council
  • Horizons Regional Council
  • Nelson City Council
  • Marlborough District Council
  • Tasman District Council
  • West Coast Regional Council
  • Environment Southland.

All regional councils and unitary authorities are eligible to apply for the Tools development grants.

The information from NIWA is available and extensive.

However, it appears that the real question is not whether the information is available and whether or not climate change has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. As NASA scientist, Compton Tucker, said three years ago;

“We’re starting to see the death of climate change denial, that is the evidence accumulated from multiple sources.

The evidence is overwhelming and there are people who are wilfully ignorant about climate change and they invoke a wide variety of mechanisms which are pretty silly.”

No, the real question is not the science which exists in abundance – but a quasi-religious belief which does not recognise or understand the science.  These are people like one of the West Coast Regional Councillors, Allan Birchfield.

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Mr Birchfield owns several coal mines. Coal is a prime source of carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases.

Despite rejecting that he is a climate change denier and opposing the Zero Carbon Bill “…because I’m a coal miner”, Mr Birchfield is also a devout follower of Donald Trump;

“I strongly support what Donald Trump has done in America bring all the miners back to work again.”

It would cost nothing for the West Coast Regional Council to be briefed by NIWA. The real question is: do they want to be?

Because whether or not people accept climate change is happening is ultimately irrelevant. Like it or not, climate change is impacting on the West Coast. The same natural force that created coal 360 million years ago is now reacting to the carbon dioxide we are releasing into the atmosphere from burning that same coal.

Count on it, Councillors.

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References

West Coast Regional Council: Submission on Zero Carbon Bill Discussion Document

Radio NZ: West Coast council rejects government climate change bill

Radio NZ: Scorching weather – Temps set to soar to 34C

Radio NZ: January 2018 NZ’s hottest month on record

NIWA: Climate stations and instruments

NIWA: SST Analyses for Standard Areas

NIWA: Argo Floats

NIWA: Environmental monitoring

NIWA: CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth)

NIWA: Underwater glider touches down in Wellington

Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment: Envirolink Scheme

NIWA: National Climate Database

Fairfax/Stuff media: West Coast Regional Council wants proof of human-caused climate change before supporting Zero Carbon Bill

Radio NZ: Impossible to deny climate change – NASA

NIWA: What is climate change and why is it happening?

Other blogs

No Right Turn:  Climate Change – (Local) government in denial

The Daily Blog: The West Coast Regional Council is the face of climate denial – let them drown!

The Standard: Does the West Coast Regional Council Exist?

Previous related blogposts

The Many Mendacities of Mr Bridges – National’s fair-weather “commitment” to a Climate Change Commission

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42 COMMENTS

  1. We are witnessing the complete failure of this faux democracy, in which money buys the political power that permits the very people who use money to gain office to make more money.

    • Frank;

      The saying “there are no fools like old fools” springs to mind here over the West Coast Council deniers.

      We have this same idiot stand with Gisborne district Council also they are burying there region on truck freight and not supporting restoring the “environmentally clean low emission rail services.

      “Fools are plenty here too sadly” – as they are all National Party supporters and just a ‘ship of fools’.

      • Rickoshay, thats one of your pet climate chahgke denying websites. The artuile it quotes inadvertantly BACKS UP climate change:

        “Physical drivers of ice melt are diagnosed by comparing satellite-observed melt patterns to anomalies of reanalysis NEAR SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE”

        “Near surface air temperature”?? The SAME near surface air temperature that has been warming for the last few decades as CO2 levels rise??

        Snapped!!

        That article you linked to was published by the American Meterological Society. The same Society that recently published this statement:

        “Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged air and ocean temperatures, as well as widespread melting of snow and ice and rising globally averaged sea level. Surface temperature data for Earth as a whole, including readings over both land and ocean, show an increase of about 0.8°C (1.4°F) over the period 1901?2010 and about 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the period 1979–2010 (the era for which satellite-based temperature data are routinely available). Due to natural variability, not every year is warmer than the preceding year globally. Nevertheless, all of the 10 warmest years in the global temperature records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with 2005 and 2010 being the warmest two years in more than a century of global records. The warming trend is greatest in northern high latitudes and over land. In the U.S., most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska; for the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high temperatures as record daily low temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.

        The effects of this warming are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic sea ice extent and volume have been decreasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost significant amounts of ice. Most of the world’s glaciers are in retreat. ” https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/about-ams/ams-statements/statements-of-the-ams-in-force/climate-change/

        So do you still accept the information and findings from the AMS that global temperatures are rising and ice is melting?

        Especially when they then say: “Climate is always changing. However, many of the observed changes noted above are beyond what can be explained by the natural variability of the climate. It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is HUMAN INDUCED increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.”

        Double snapped!!

        (PS hat tip to Frank showing me how to research this kind of stuff to tear apart climate change deniers bullshit)

  2. “Funding of $1.6 million (excluding GST) is available each year for Crown research institutes, universities and private research organisations to provide regional councils with advice and research on environmental projects.”

    Oh ho!!! Sooooooo, those good gentlemen of the West Coast could get the information they so crave. They just haven’t bothered. Or were to ignorant to know about it. Either way, not a good look for a bunch of climate change sceptics. Though they exemplify tge typical climare chsnge sceptic perfectly: more set in their beliefs and ignoring sciebtific data available to them.

    How do they tie their shoelaces in the morning??

  3. Just exactly like every other comment and article discussing the West coast decision this addresses the question that the council did not ask.
    They have not said that warming is not happening. They have said that has not been sufficiently proven that mankind through carbon emissions is causing that rise. And they are not on their own.
    I have been trying to discover why the oceans seem to have warmed more in the last 100 years than the atmosphere… 5.8oC cf 3.4oC as far as I can find. But articles claim that ocean warming has accelerated during the last 20 years. So I was getting close because they set up a comprehensive measuring system called Argo using 3000+ drifting bouys about then, so they would have much better data. Measuring previously was hap hazard.
    So there should be good records from 2000. But everything you find wants to refer back to ’71 when the Chalanger was doing sample tests in the Atlantic mainly. Finally when I found a reference to Argos’ data only, over a 5 or 6 year period to 2008, what the numbers showed is that the ocean had cooled over that period, not warmed. There have been assumptions since that the sampling or the calibration must have been faulty.
    If you consider the size of the ocean, the currents, undersea volcanoes, melting ice , changing technology etc. , getting a correlation from assessments 100 years ago, and finding that they seem to be within 0.5oC of their best efforts now is astounding. To claim that the assessments have been accurate enough be able to claim a 0.58oC change over that time is ridiculous. The truth is they haven’t got a clue yet whether the ocean is getting warmer or colder except that the ice is melting. I suspect the sea is getting warmer than their tests indicate , but it will be many years of much more comprehensive measurement before anyone knows what is really happening and why.
    D J S

    • Well we already know what’s happening in the significant sense and we already know the cause.
      It’s only the details of the mechanisms involved that are yet to be fully understood.

      They have not said that warming is not happening. They have said that has not been sufficiently proven that mankind through carbon emissions is causing that rise. And they are not on their own.

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. The inhabitants of rural Hooterville etc are not on their own but they are also definitely not with every credible scientific organisation on the planet, all of which (i.e. those with a position statement on the subject) accept that human caused climate change (warming) exists.

    • “They have not said that warming is not happening”

      Rubbish. You’re indulging in semantics, David. Plus you’re ignoring the fact that, as Frank clearly pointed out (and which you studiously ignored), they could get the information they needed by applying for the Enviro funding from MOBIE, and pay for a NIWA briefing.

      You comment questioning whether the oceans are heating up, then in the next breath confirm that the ice is melting. Newsflash, ice melts when the surrounding liquid warms up. QED.

      You’ve answered your own question, just haven’t taken it in.

      • “You’ve answered your own question, just haven’t taken it in.”

        Quite! The evidence is not in question and needs no scientific measurement. The cause is not so clear.
        D J S

        • “The cause is not so clear.”

          What part of rising CO2 and methane levels and rising temperatures is “not so clear”?

          If the rise in temperature correlates with increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases, what part of that is “not so clear”?

          If the rise in CFCs in the 1990s correlared with the growing hole in the ozone layer, then it’s a sure bet that banning that chemical stopped the total degradation of the ozone layer and saved life on Earth.

          I can cite numerous examples of increasing pollution leading to degraded environment. Or bad health outcomes. Thalidomide? Smoking? Asbestos? Leaded petrol? Lead in paint? Are those “clear enough for you”??

          You gotta stop buying into Big Fossil Fuel corporation propaganda David, really you do.

    • David, to address several points you’ve made;

      They have not said that warming is not happening. They have said that has not been sufficiently proven that mankind through carbon emissions is causing that rise.

      That point could be clarified quickly and effectively by engaging with NIWA’s scientists. Through NIWA’s own research, and relationship in data-sharing with NOAA, there is a wealth of information available.

      The question – as I pointed out in my article above – is not whether the information exists. It does. The question is whether the WCRC wants to access the information.

      Because once they do gain that information then the real hard step comes next: they have to act on it.

      By questioning anthropogenic climate change and not doing anything about it to acquire information, they don’t have to act on it. “Ignorance is bliss”, in other words.

      I have been trying to discover why the oceans seem to have warmed more in the last 100 years than the atmosphere… 5.8oC cf 3.4oC as far as I can find.

      Without knowing which sources of information you have been using “to discover why the oceans seem to have warmed more in the last 100 years than the atmosphere” it is unclear why you have not resolved that question.

      A brief explanation to sea and atmosphere temperature variations can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_surface_temperature

      Finally when I found a reference to Argos’ data only, over a 5 or 6 year period to 2008, what the numbers showed is that the ocean had cooled over that period, not warmed. There have been assumptions since that the sampling or the calibration must have been faulty.

      Please provide the source of your information that “the numbers showed is that the ocean had cooled over that period, not warmed” . Without that citation, it is difficult to gauge the veracity of that claim.

      According to NOAA, your assertion is simply incorrect. NOAA reports that “Satellites and weather stations on land show that average air temperature at the surface is going up. Consequently, we see an increase in the number of heat wave events and the area affected by drought”

      ref: https://cpo.noaa.gov/warmingworld/ocean_heat_content.html

      NIWA reports that “NIWA’s ‘seven-station’ temperature series uses temperature measurements from seven ‘climate stations’. The locations were chosen because they provide a representative geographical spread across NZ and have reliable records dating back at least to the early 1900s. The linear trend in the annual average temperature over the period 1909 to 2018 is a warming of 1.09ºC (or a rate of 1.00ºC per 100 years).”

      ref: https://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/information-and-resources/nz-temperature-record

      Raw data can be accessed here: https://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/

      Your assertion that ” The truth is they haven’t got a clue yet whether the ocean is getting warmer or colder except that the ice is melting” is not sustained by scientific data. It is also contradictory.

      If the ice is melting, it must be because of rising temperature. It can’t be melting if the ocean is getting colder.

      You then state, as an after-thought that ” I suspect the sea is getting warmer than their tests indicate” .

      “Suspicion” is not required. The information shows that is clearly the case.

      • Thanks for your response Frank, but for the first point I can but ®ever back to my first comment. You have criticised them for claiming that warming was not happening. They didn’t say that. They said it was not sufficiently proven that mankind was causing it.
        Reference to ocean cooling article is https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OceanCoolingE&E.pdf
        I do not claim to have studied all scientific measurement and analysis on global warming and reached a definitive conclusion. But anyone who sets out to follow the information trail with an open mind will realise that the degree of influence that mankind emissions of CO2 is not yet established.
        I fully concur with the proposal that we may well be warming the planet by this process and many others , and that it would be prudent to change our behaviour in this regard in case, and pending more conclusive information.
        But my impression so far is that some scientists and many commentators are overstating the certainty of man made climate change, going beyond their certainty. Both to sell exciting comment and more from the view that “if it is as bad as it might be we have to scare people into doing something”. If this is the case it is going to backfire because it provides ammunition to the vested interests that don’t want anything to change.
        I am not one of them and I am not entering discussion on climate change on TDB again.
        D J S

  4. Conflating “climate change deniers” with people (like myself) that simply know that there isn’t much we can do about it, is disingenuous. Outside of concerted global boycotts/invasions of India, China and later South America and Africa which would result in mass starvation, poverty and murder far worse than anything we have ever seen in modern history, nothing is going to change regardless of NZ’s local action (given we represent 0.1% of global emissions)… other than making us worse of. We all need to get realistic here.

    • ‘other than making us worse of (off)’

      You are presumably talking about money, rather than anything of real value, like a liveable environment or a future for children.

      ‘mass starvation, poverty and murder far worse than anything we have ever seen in modern history’ are natural consequences of continuing to squander energy and resources the way NZers (and other nations of the high-energy-consumption club) currently do.

      There is nothing more certain than that energy depletion and resources depletion, together with environmental collapse, will terminate current NZ living arrangements in the not-too-distant future.

      Meanwhile, the global environmental collapse numbers are starting to get very big:

      ‘A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds report

      Even radical climate change action won’t save glaciers, endangering 2 billion people’

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/04/a-third-of-himalayan-ice-cap-doomed-finds-shocking-report

      • “Future children” are obviously part of the problem, if the the most important part of the problem. Having had zero children myself (and no plans to), my carbon footprint is automatically lower than pretty much anyone who has had children. I dare say I’ve been doing my part far more than most – after all what does a decrease in emissions per capita achieve in the face of an exponential increase in population?

    • “Conflating “climate change deniers” with people (like myself) that simply know that there isn’t much we can do about it, is disingenuous…nothing is going to change regardless of NZ’s local action (given we represent 0.1% of global emissions)… other than making us worse of. We all need to get realistic here”

      I find that a fatalistic view, Nitrium.

      The same could’ve been said about CFC pollution damaging the ozone layer; cigarette smoking; the use of DDT; apartheid in South Africa, French atomic bomb testing at Mururoa; or even the most recent finding that meth-testing of State houses was an outright scam.

      Or even my on-going criticism of the neo-liberal economic model.

      We do it because we must.

  5. Apart from all the rest of this parody of democracy, is anyone asking what is wrong with ALL the Regional Councils? They are substantially unfit for purpose, and the evidence lies in the lack of involvement by the voters, far worse even than local government.

    • “But the fact of the matter is that human induced climate change is far from ‘proven’ and the based on 30 years of predictions compared to actuality, its effects are most likely far less severe than thought.”

      That’s not a “fact” Andrew, thats your narrow opinion. You don’ t want to accept the reality of anthropogenic climare change because it is in indictment of our consumerist, wasteful, polluting capitslist ( and stare-capitalist) society.

      “Less severe”?? When sea levels rise as the ice caps and glaciers mekt, threatening heightened storm surges, leading to insurance companies withdrawing from insuring coastal properties ,,, I’d say that’s a severe outcome, wiuldn’t you?? Or when billions of dollars of infrastructure are threatened, that’s severe eh?

      The fact is that your claims have no scientific basis but are a parroted line from Big Fossil Fuel corporations and their uninformed acolytes

      • > Human induced climate change was proved in the 90s, the 1890s.

        Why do you believe that?

        If that was true, then the 2003 predictions on 2018 climate would be correct.

        Instead, CO2 has risen faster than expected, and temperatures have not. In Science, that means the theory has been falsified, however AGW admits no failures, and instead adjusts data to fit.

        Remove GIA from ice melt and sea level rise and you get back to observed data, which shows it just isn’t happening.

        • If that was true, then the 2003 predictions on 2018 climate would be correct.

          What “predictions” are you referring to? Citation?

          Instead, CO2 has risen faster than expected, and temperatures have not

          Untrue.

          You can see temperature increases tracking here: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

          Raw data for individual years here: https://climate.nasa.gov/system/internal_resources/details/original/647_Global_Temperature_Data_File.txt

          …however AGW admits no failures, and instead adjusts data to fit.

          Please provide evidence/data of your assertion. You make claims without any data to back it up.

          • No you’re wrong here Frank. Here is a graph showing CO2 vs temperature:
            https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-4c68e8485330b2899878aa428631f3b3
            Since humans started unnaturally spiking CO2, temperatures have clearly not followed suit as they seem to have done historically. Which is why I assert that temperature affects CO2 levels and not the other way round (indeed CO2 lags behind temperature changes). The apparent correlation up till now has convinced scientists of a false hypothesis – they seem to have (conveniently?) forgotten a central tenant of the scientific method that “correlation does not equal causation”. The correlation has completely broken down now, and it’s becoming increasingly harder to make their broken climate models fit.

            • The graph you link to is of Antarctica and has extremely poor resolution, no link to methodology and no link to a reputable scientific journal. Indeed, we don’t even know if it is from just one location in Antarctica (it certainly cannot be an average, since data from Antarctica is extremely sparse).

              Nevertheless, despite its poor resolution and lack of scientific link, the graph does show a clear uptick in temperature in response to the recent surge in atmospheric CO2 -an uptick which you choose not to notice

              Of course, you do what all climate change deniers do: cherry pick data, or present ‘data’ that is extremely dubious, or ‘data’ that has no scientific credibility, or data which is entirely irrelevant. Or you choose not notice actual trends evident in the data you present or misread graphs (as happened just a few days ago when you were blathering on about the Jurassic period being 15 to 25oC warmer than now) -and you do so repeatedly despite mounting evidence you are totally wrong on almost all counts.

              You totally ignore the scientific explanations provided -such as the explanation for why atmospheric CO2 followed temperature until human induced emissions overwhelmed the natural systems that recycled CO2.

              When your absurd commentaries are shot down in flames by references to actual data from reputable scientific organisations (or simply by logical argument) you simply move on to some other obscure, irrelevant piece of ‘information’. Indeed, you demonstrate an extraordinary capacity to avoid logical conclusions based on scientific evidence provided by organisations with longstanding reputations for good science, such as that supplied by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography:

              https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2018/09/19/is-the-current-rise-in-co2-definitely-caused-by-human-activities/

              Meanwhile, the global environmental predicament gets made worse by the second, primarily as a direct consequence of the actions of humans with access to fossil fuels.

            • Nitrium, and yet each year continues to get hotter. Temperatures are rising. So Frank isn’t wrong, you’re just being selective. Mis-using data is the last resort of people who can’t otherwise prove their case.

            • Hey Nitrium, sorty to burst that bubble of yours, but the facts appear to make codswallop of your claims:

              “The Met Office says that 2015 was the first year in which the global annual average surface temperature reached 1C above the pre-industrial level, which is generally taken to mean the temperatures between 1850 and 1900.

              Each year since then, the global average has hovered close to or above the 1C mark. Now, the Met Office says that trend is likely to continue or increase over the next five years. “https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/environment/381910/world-headed-for-warmest-period-on-record

              Its a bitch when the facts contradict your cosy worldview, eh

        • Hey flowin, “Instead, CO2 has risen faster than expected, and temperatures have not. In Science, that means the theory has been falsified, however AGW admits no failures, and instead adjusts data to fit”

          Where’s your data?? Oh thats right, you got none. You just deride the hard work done by others. Easy to do that, just switch your brain off. Climate change deniers, you people need to look at what’s going on around you. We’ve had the hottest January in over a century and its like nothing’s happening.

          The data exists, you just need to pay attention.

    • But the fact of the matter is that human induced climate change is far from ‘proven’ and the based on 30 years of predictions compared to actuality, its effects are most likely far less severe than thought.

      Continental drift and evolution is proven science, Andrew.

      You’re also trying to have “a bob/bobette both ways” by (a) denying anthropogenic climate change and then (b) even if it’s real, ” its effects are most likely far less severe than thought”.

      Tell that to farmers affected by drought; urban areas threatened by flooding; or coastal property owners impacted by rising sea levels and more powerful storm surges.

      • A climate denying website, Rickoshay?

        None of those “500 scientific papers published in 2018” appear to have been published in a credible scientific journal.

        In fact, I did a random search on just one of those so-called “papers”, ‘Modern Climate In Phase With Natural Variability’
        , and it came up as a title re-published on other climate-denying websites. The article does not exist as far as I can determine.

        The claim of “500 scientific papers published in 2018” appears to be bogus.

        • Frank, not only are the deniers bereft of capability to cite their specious claims with up to date references but a key feature of the denier group (including the luminaries) is a complete lack of coherence.
          Deniers have no coherent position variously claiming: it’s the sun, it’s natural cycles, it’s the end of an ice age, it’s Pacific Decadal Oscillation, temperature leads CO2, it’s a change in reflectivity of clouds or whatever the theory du jour is on Watts Up With That. The only things deniers cohere on are:
          1. it’s anything but carbon
          2. or, if it’s carbon it’s not manmade carbon emissions

        • It is, indeed a denial website, Frank.

          As is usually the case with denial websites, the operator of the website has no qualifications relating to climate science (and probably has no qualifications in chemistry or biology). In other words, no credibility.

          From the NoTricksZone: ‘I received an Associate Degree in Civil Engineering at Vermont Technical College and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson.’

          The lack of understanding of chemistry is apparent in the statement: ‘I’ve always been a skeptic of the hypothesis mankind is causing catastrophic global warming because it is pumping a few ppm of a trace gas into the atmosphere.’

          Well, emissions are measured in billions of tonnes per annum (around 37 billion per annum at the moment), not ppm. The effect of emissions on the atmosphere is measured in ppm.

          If anyone has doubts about the effect of apparently low concentrations of trace gases, just consider ozone: ‘the average ozone concentration in Earth’s atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million’.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer

          That 0.3 ppm average ozone makes all the difference between life at ground level and no life at ground level by blocking most of the high energy UV that would otherwise reach ground level and break chemical bonds.

          The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is more than 1000 times greater than ozone.

          What is more, unlike reputable scientists who stick to well established facts and principles (many going back well over a century) and present consistent narratives, Pierre Gosselin has written: ‘I’m not convinced of any one particular position, and so my non-alarmist view is subject to change at any time.’

          In other words, when living conditions get really bad as a consequence of planetary meltdown (as they undoubtedly will), Gosselin could well decide that CO2-induced overheating is very alarming!

          Notwithstanding any of the above, RICKOSHAY is apparently completely immune to scientific data and logical argument, and will presumably keep linking to the shonky website.

      • Andrew, Rickoshay, Nitrium, & inflowin –

        “The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has published an analysis of five major international datasets showing that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22.

        “Temperatures are only part of the story. Extreme and high impact weather affected many countries and millions of people, with devastating repercussions for economies and ecosystems in 2018,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas” — https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47144058

        Kind of shoots your climate denying out of the water, doesn’t it.

    • If one listens to Bill Gate’s TED talk he outlines the plan to bring down earth’s CO2 to zero!! Hmm…round of applause, please, for the owner of a great mind who admits he doesn’t vaccinate his children and owns a bunker underground.

      • Bringing CO2 to zero would certainly solve the climate problem as there wouldn’t be a climate or people to experience it

        • Luckily thats not what reducing grennhouse has emissions is all about, eh Andy? But you knew that. You’re just trolling. Now try talking with the grown ups.

Comments are closed.