General Debate 17 January 2020

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artemisia

Wellington City Council inserting itself into the housing market for tenants with incomes up to about $90,000 pa. Rent increases tied to CPI. Free wifi. Pets OK. No cost to ratepayers – actually ‘no direct cost’ whatever that means.

What could possibly go wrong?

tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/wellingtons-new-housing-solution-includes-rent-stabilisation-free-wi-fi-teachers
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January 17, 2020 8:03am
- dave_c_
  
  Artemesia -Everything !
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:12am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  Do I have to work to get one or can I be a ‘job seeker’?
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:29am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    All you need to do is prove your intent to seek a job.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:15am
- Sacha
  
  We can safely assume that the developers are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but if that’s what it takes to get more available housing then so be it.
  They will probably end up as demolition projects like the famed Terrace blocks, but in the meantime, they will provide housing for some.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:40am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Housing for teachers and nurses.
    A developers dream: Council co-operation to kit out city apartments so those paid from public monies can fill a long term underwritten project.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:28am
- peterwn
  
  Wellington City Council has been in the social housing business for many decades and has a significant asset base. AFAIK there is little or no burden on ratepayers (more likely the taxpayer indirectly supports this). The Council can no doubt leverage more housing off the existing asset base.
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:33am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The new project looks like socialist schemes for developers.
    Are nurses and teachers among our poorer or lesser abled classes?
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:30am
  - artemisia
    
    Wellington’s $400 million 20 year social housing budget set about 2008 was spent in the first 10 years. Of course the $220 million from taxpayers was spent first.
    
    Then there is the $27.5 million ratepayers will be contributing to help kick-start housing development in Wellington. (2018 10 year plan.)
    
    The council did help the ratepayers a bit by developing social housing and leasing it to Kainga Ora.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:44am
- Groggy
  
  This is nothing new, Wellington City Council has been the largest Social Housing Provider in the region for nearly a century, and it’s one thing they actually do very well – unlike maintaining basic infrastructure and transport planning. So it’s highly unlikely that anything will go wrong.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:18am
- rouppe
  
  1. The Wellington Company leases the entire building to the Council. So they get a guaranteed income.
  
  2. The council subleases to the tenants. At “no direct cost”.
  
  One would imagine no problem filling them in the beginning but many things can go wrong with a tenancy. The thoughts that spring to my mind are:
  a) The numbers will be on the assumption that the building is fully tenanted. If there is vacancy the numbers start getting tight.
  b) Nurses and teachers still smoke. Are these smoke free tenancies? Or will the second or subsequent tenant have to deal with the residue of whatever is smoked in there.
  c) Who pays if damage occurs?
  d) Who pays if the signed-off building is subsequently found to be wanting for earthquake strengthening a la BNZ building.
  e) What materials are being used to separate the apartments? If a commercial building is being converted you can be sure it isn’t concrete block or brick. So what’s the noise suppression like between apartments?
  f) How soon before the council is leaned on to make these available for “emergency” housing to get people out of motels, which will then bring all those problems into the apartment building
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:41am
  - Prince
    
    Who pays if the tenant doesn’t ?
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:26am
    - rouppe
      
      The council will be obliged to continue paying the lease to The Wellington Company
      
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      January 17, 2020 12:19pm
      - artemisia
        
        Developers will certainly be happy. Long term guaranteed income, no faffing about getting enough pre sales to go ahead, probably no interior unit maintenance if they are smart, assume just building maintenance and that built in to the lease cost.
        
        Household incomes of $50k or more are easy to achieve in Wellington, especially if more than one in the household. Interesting to eventually see the criteria. Like a nurse and a teacher in a one or two beddie will easily exceed the $90k cap. So, sorry you are essential workers but earn too much.
        
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        January 17, 2020 5:24pm
  - artemisia
    
    Some good points there. Managing tenancies these days is complex, with rules changing every 5 minutes, and can be extremely time consuming and stressful as most landlords know.
    
    Wellington City Council will probably expand their existing social housing management team for the new units and I wonder if all those costs will be correctly applied to the rental income or hidden in council budgets (aka paid by ratepayers).
    
    Those paying market rent in the new places should be properly checked out to avoid future problems. I would expect there to be many applicants, not sure I would want to be the person approving or denying tenancies.
    
    Still, should be fewer hassles than with social housing.
    
    (I have worked extensively in the field and am a private landlord these days. Not much I haven’t seen.)
    
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    January 17, 2020 12:10pm
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  “no direct costs” – famous weasel words, so either they are relying on capital gain to make this look “fiscally neutral”, or they are reallocating existing funding, and this is smoke and mirrors.
  
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  January 17, 2020 1:23pm
- Overworked
  
  All fine and good, but will they be the sort of place someone on $90,000 a year is prepared to stay in?
  
  There will be minimal daylight, probably opressively low ceilings, dodgy lifts and most likely a toilet opening into the living area.
  
  But if it works, tenants are happy, and crucially that ratepayers don’t have to subsidise the apartments on top of paying their own mortgages, all good.
  
  But an airy ‘no direct cost’ isn’t enough, I’d like to see the numbers.
  
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  January 17, 2020 1:28pm
Justitia

The mysteries of man-made warming. How does CO2, a trace gas making up 0.04% of the atmosphere, account for up to 20% of global warming (water vapour is estimated to contribute the remaining 80%)? Has such a profound insulating effect ever been demonstrated in the laboratory?
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January 17, 2020 8:04am
- cmm
  
  Well we know that Venus has 96% CO2 and has a temperature of 800C.
  
  But Mars has 95% CO2 and the temperature is -80C (yes, minus 80).
  
  So the science is settled.
  
  There are “lab experiments” (a simplified version in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ) which can demonstrate the warming effect of CO2 of isolated CO2, but this is clearly very different to, and an oversimplification of, how CO2 behaves in the atmosphere in trace quantities.
  
  If you were at school you would have to put on a “denier” armband and the other kids would be encouraged to ostracize you.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:16am
  - rightoverlabour
    
    Could I suggest a yellow one, possibly with some sort of star on it? And once the kids are identified we could organise friendly visits to the families and then say round them up and put them in “re-education camps”. I can’t believe the stupidity of Hipkins, but most of the teachers will just follow suit ” I was just following orders”. I am incensed at this latest move by Hipkins and Shaw.
    
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    January 17, 2020 8:29am
    - cmm
      
      With Hugzilla’s PR training she should be able to help out with a nice catch-phrase re-hashed from something already out there, but she’s a busy mum so I can help.
      
      Klima Macht Vrei
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:17am
  - Michael
    
    Thank you Chris Hipkins.
    
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    January 17, 2020 8:37am
    - Simon
      
      New Zealand schools to teach students about climate crisis, activism and ‘eco anxiety’
      Changes to the curriculum will put the country at the forefront of climate crisis education worldwide
      
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/13/new-zealand-schools-to-teach-students-about-climate-crisis-activism-and-eco-anxiety
      
      The National party supports this bull shit.
      
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      January 17, 2020 9:19am
  - Sydney Alvarado
    
    Well I think the science that is settled is the stuff you learned in 6th form. Oxygen and Nitrogen do not absorb heat. At all. Co2 and methane absorb heat. Stacks and stacks of it.
    
    As for venus and Mars, their temperature differences might be due to where they are located in the solar system.
    
    As you will have seen from many of my comments I am highly critical of wasteful and ineffective policies to mitigate greenhouse emissions. That debate is never ‘settled’. But I can assure you that unless the laws of physics are overturned tomorrow that co2 absorbs heat in a way that is not proportionate to its composition in the atmosphere. Indeed if it wasn’t in the atmosphere, we would be a frozen wasteland.
    
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    January 17, 2020 8:45am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      You need to read Feyman on CO2.
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:33am
      - Doc Holliday
        
        No, you need to read Feynman. Feynman never, ever disputed the greenhouse effect. Foolish nonsense.
        
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        January 17, 2020 10:50am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Doc Holliday
        
        He is dead and his was an opinion and since he is dead he is not able to contribute to today’s left wing madness.
        
        “It turns out, all you need to do when you read or hear something that sounds smart, is try to translate it back into ordinary language – or better yet, have the person explain it for you – without using any scientific jargon or terms, and see if it still makes sense.”
        -Richard Feynman
        
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        January 17, 2020 11:21am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Hi Sydney
      
      CO2 does not absorb heat, it conducts it. Something absorbs heat when it is incapable of re-radiating the heat it has taken on board. i.e something of low thermal Emissivity.
      
      Way back, the original argument about CO2 was that it absorbs heat, and therefore a Greenhouse gas. When the obvious was pointed out that water vapour is by far the biggest Greenhouse gas, the argument was altered to say that CO2 causes amplification of the warming of water vapour.
      
      The entire current argument with current Climate Change theory rests on the fact that CO2 re-radiates the heat and transmits it to water vapour, causing the water vapour to heat. This would be true if the nature of the heat retained by water vapour changed energy levels to no longer be in the IR spectrum. Heat arriving at the Ocean causes more vaporization, using up the energy in the process, so it has truth.
      
      However Oxygen also re-radiates IR at 50 times the rate of CO2. What will they do, ban Oxygen?
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:51am
  - mjw
    
    Mars has a much thinner atmosphere and is further away from the sun.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:12am
    - cmm
      
      True, Mars has a thinner atmosphere, but still has more CO2 than we do.
      
      The partial pressure CO2 (aka ppCO2, fancy way of measuring absolute amount of a gas) on Mars is still around 14.5x what it is on Earth.
      
      Mars is about 1.6x the distance from the sun than we are which means the sun is only 40% as strong as on Earth.
      
      Then of course our atmospheric chemistry is different with different gases, eg ozone, which act very differently when the sun changes spectrum (as it does with the different phases of the solar cycle).
      
      Complicated eh? Just picking and running with “it’s all down the the CO2” might be oversimplifying things.
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:30am
      - Doc Holliday
        
        So if it’s not the 45% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere causing the warming, what is it?
        
        The scientific community deserves to know.
        
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        January 17, 2020 11:01am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Doc
        
        “It turns out, all you need to do when you read or hear something that sounds smart, is try to translate it back into ordinary language – or better yet, have the person explain it for you – without using any scientific jargon or terms, and see if it still makes sense.”
        
        -Richard Feynman
        
        I’m all ears. Please do explain.
        
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        January 17, 2020 11:25am
      - Ford Prefect
        
        When the analysis is only focused on two elements of the equation, how can anyone tell which has influence on the other. Either a rise in CO2 causes a temperature rise or a temperature rise causes more CO2. How can this possible be defined.
        More importantly, are they linked at all, or are other circumstances causing temperatures and CO2 to rise. The same way there are more shark attacks when ice-cream sales go up. Not linked to each other but both linked to summer.
        
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        January 17, 2020 11:45am
      - cmm
        
        Doc:
        Maybe Rock Music?
        Maybe because they turned their back on God? Maybe the same thing that caused changes during the Little Ice Age?
        Maybe we aren’t even observing anything but random noise (you know how if you look at clouds you can see elephants)?
        
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        January 17, 2020 1:18pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Ford Prefect
        
        I like the analogy with shark attacks and ice-cream sales 🙂
        
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        January 17, 2020 1:57pm
      - rightoverlabour
        
        @ Doc
        Probably changes in cloudiness.
        
        http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/cloudiness.htm
        
        https://www.clim-past.net/8/1199/2012/cp-8-1199-2012.pdf
        
        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/01/data-global-temperatures-rose-as-cloud-cover-fell-in-the-1980s-and-90s/
        
        Or may be the warming oceans as posted so triumphantly by Stephieboy….
        I very much doubt its just CO2….
        
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        January 17, 2020 2:33pm
  - Than
    
    Mars/Vensus are not an apples and applies comparison because of the different distances from the sun.
    
    Earth at 1 AU distance receives 1361 W/m^2
    Venus at 0.7 AU distance receives 2622 W/m^2
    Mars at 1.5 AU distance receives 590 W/m^2
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:01am
    - cmm
      
      Correct, yet many will cherry pick the Venus example.
      
      Nor are we apples to apples comparisons due to:
      water vapour levels, ozone layers, biological activity, etc etc etc…
      
      But suggesting that a teeny tiny change on the CO2 dial is going to have a huge difference on Earth when much more CO2 on both Mars and Venus have different outcomes is hardly “logical”.
      
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      January 17, 2020 1:24pm
      - Than
        
        Your second and third statements contradict.
        
        In your second statement you agree different planets can’t be compared due to a lot of factors. Not just incident solar flux, but also atmospheric density/composition, planetary albedo, etc.
        
        Yet then you still claim that Mars and Venus are a rebuttal of the influence of CO2 on Earth’s climate. They aren’t. The situations are simply to different for any comparison to be meaningful.
        
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        January 17, 2020 5:49pm
    - coge
      
      And the Venusian atmosphere is far denser that Earths.
      
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      January 17, 2020 5:35pm
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    If you stop Cindy from talking, lot of hot air can be stopped. Just doing my part to prevent climate emergency.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:17am
  - Rachael Membery
    
    But not in a bullying Way
    
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    January 17, 2020 5:46pm
- rightoverlabour
  
  Mostly because half the climate scientests don’t understand physics. The intricacies of absorption by molecules of IR is very complicated and mostly poorly understood. Most just make the assumption “CO2 traps heat” and therefore more CO2 equals more trapped heat. Which is of course incorrect. However I digress . Looks like the USA is cooling, and this is from NOAA…
  
  https://electroverse.net/jackson-wyoming-just-suffered-its-coldest-year-on-record/
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:24am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    half the climate scientests don’t understand physics
    Do you even believe half of what you write?
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:00am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Do you understand how Arrhenius has been mangled to present the CO2 greenhouse gas theme?
      Was he right or wrong?
      
      Arrhenius is so 19th century.
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:36am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      No. I believe 100% of what I write.
      
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      January 17, 2020 1:00pm
  - mjw
    
    There is natural variation is all data series, and all physical phenomena. However, the link you provide shows unmistakable global warming. Yes, North America has a an area that is “Cooler than Average” (not even “Much Cooler than Average” or “Record Cooling”). On the same map there is about 30 times the area that is “Record Warmest” and 100 times the area that is “Much Warmer than Average”.
    
    Follow the science. Follow the data.
    
    A fair examination of all the available data in any series reveals the warming trend.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:19am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Mega cities are cooking:
      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/16/the-cities-are-cooking/
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:37am
    - rouppe
      
      There are two aspects to the climate change debate.
      
      1. Is the planet warming?
      2. What is causing it?
      
      Pointing out that the world is warming does not point out the reasons why .
      
      The scepticism present, including here, is that the science hasn’t made a compelling argument that it is all CO2, and thus the extra CO2 emitted from human activity “must be it”.
      
      Now they’ve certainly repeated the mantra, over and over… However science is not “might”. Science starts with a hypothesis, an experiment is proposed to test that hypothesis, and it is either proven, or not.
      
      The problem many have is that of all the experiments the scientists have executed by way of models, exactly none have proven accurate and repeatable. It’s like telling us to believe that putting your hand in a fire won’t burn you, when not one single experiment to prove it has succeeded. You’d be a fool to do it.
      
      When did science change so that empirical evidence of cause and effect is no longer required?
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:56am
  - cmm
    
    “Mostly because half the climate scientests don’t understand physics”
    
    This is school-level physics – not much to understand.
    
    But they DO understand:
    A) Which side of their bread has the butter on.
    B) Gotta sing the right tune or they throw you out the choir.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:29am
    - Doc Holliday
      
      Paranoid madness.
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:03am
  - JackRabbit
    
    So true, it is all based on assumptions that the non scientific public believe they have no way of verifying.
    
    There is a very old saying, often said in relation to unethical salesmen and dumb scientists in state employment: “If you can’t blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit!”.
    
    Keeping the science simple:
    Insulators trap heat, Conductors conduct heat. It is the reason why chilli bins are made of plastic and fry-pans are made of metal.
    
    CO2 conducts heat better than other gases. CO2 can conduct heat out of the atmosphere as easily as it can conduct it in. Nitrogen is a poor conductor of heat, which is why it is used in racing car tyres to keep the tyres cool.
    
    CO2 conducts heat at 3 times the rate of oxygen, but there is 150 times as much oxygen as there is CO2. So oxygen has 50:1 conduction capability compared to CO2.
    
    Even allowing for chemical imbalances and spins, Oxygen is still going to conduct much more heat than CO2. If it were not for the the volume of oxygen and for that matter nitrogen, and their heat conduction. you could sit in front of an Infra Red heater on full, and still freeze to death.
    
    Humidity is the main factor that alters cooling and heating. As someone involved in heating and cooling, including measurement, it is well known that a room is far costlier and harder to heat or cool when the humidity is higher. All heat pumps carry out de-humidification or have de-humidification settings, and de-humidifiers sales are significant. Why? To get rid of excess humidity that impacts heating and cooling.
    
    Also, the conduction, reaction, and exchange ability of all gases is substantially impacted by the number of small air ions, both negative and positive, and the ratio of positive to negative ions.
    
    Put a person in a sealed room with perfect ratio of gases including oxygen, ideal temperature and ideal humidity, but no small air ions, and that person will eventually go into a coma and probably die. This is caused by asphyxiation due to an inability of their lungs to convert CO2 to O2. There are no air ions to facilitate the exchange.
    
    A lowered small air ion count, and/or an imbalance of positive and negative small air ions, is the primary cause of sick building syndrome and why many people suffer bad after effects when traveling by air.
    
    With high levels of small air ions, in balance, and even nitrogen will conduct at a higher rate.
    
    The Climate Change theorists need to grow a pair, and stop being seduced by funding. The Climate Change Emperor’s need to realise they are butt naked, and clothed in nothing but their own untested theories and assumptions.
    
    “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
    -Nikola Tesla
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:52am
    - Overworked
      
      Lungs don’t convert CO2 to O2. CO2 is a product of tissue metabolism and is transported to the lungs to be diffused out over the capillary wall and surface of the alveolar cells.
      
      O2 crosses over the lung surface into capillaries which transport it to the body’s tissues to be used there.
      
      There is a bit of literature on the effect of charged molecules, particularly oxygen, in the air breathed, but it’s pretty peripheral and mostly relates to the effect of an excess of, say, charged oxygen molecules rather than normal levels.
      
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      January 17, 2020 1:55pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        If you want to split hairs, yes you are correct, but from a point of view others can understand, it occurs in the lungs.
        
        “There is a bit of literature on the effect of charged molecules, particularly oxygen, in the air breathed, but it’s pretty peripheral and mostly relates to the effect of an excess of, say, charged oxygen molecules rather than normal levels.”
        
        Animal experiments were carried out decades ago that showed the effects I described when there were no ions. Experiments were also carried out in very low oxygen atmospheres that allowed said animals to breathe normally.
        
        NASA published data decades ago, of which I used to have a copy of, about the first extended space missions, where astronauts suffered hypoxia and loss of control of body motor functions, despite having adequate oxygen. NASA rectified the problem in later missions with artificial small air ion replacement.
        
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        January 17, 2020 2:45pm
  - tf78
    
    The trouble with “on record” is when they chose the “records” to use. Was it 1970 or 1870 – I’m over this bs.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:00am
    - JackRabbit
      
      So true. This world is full of double speak.
      
      “highest ever”, highest on record”, “4th hottest year on record” are statements taken out of context and tells you absolutely nothing.
      
      “increasing rate of sea level rise” – but stats show it is the same 1.5mm per year it has been for the past 115 years. (Royal Society of NZ)
      
      “highest sea temperatures ever” – but has only been being recorded for 20 years, and within yearly / long term variations.
      
      “4th hottest year on record” – could be in a decline i.e. has failed to surpass previous highs. Ore you might exclude any data or records on the past 1500 years of heatwaves.
      
      https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/
      
      “Its been a family tradition that we always spend our Christmas in Australia” – Jacinda Ardern on justifying why she was taking 8 weeks private holiday and going to Australia (inclusive of non-private public shared shoots).
      
      Reality – they have only done it for 2 years previously. It is not a tradition until carried out many times and habit passed onto the next generation. It will become a tradition only when Neve grows up and takes her children overseas to Australia at Christmas.
      
      Tradition: the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:17am
      - Surely Knott
        
        Gosh what is the climate impact of that holiday tradition? Surely climate spokesmodels would be staycationing and saving the planet for the sake of the children.
        
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        January 17, 2020 1:10pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Surely Knott
        
        ” Surely climate spokesmodels would be staycationing and saving the planet for the sake of the children”
        
        Yes and, there would not be a plethora of climate change conferences all over the world complete with expensive hotel accommodation, expensive rental cars, expensive meals, expensive wine and champagne, expensive first class airline travel on jets belching out carbon emissions. Nope they do not believe in Climate Change, just the opportunity to put their snout into the public trough.
        
        Yep, if they believed in Climate Change it would all be done on Skype and email. As a quote once went: “Why don’t they wake up and smell what they’re shoveling”.
        
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        January 17, 2020 2:06pm
    - Ford Prefect
      
      They used to use graphs covering several thousand years, but the medieval warm period and the roman warm period destroyed their theory. Now they only go back 100 odd years. Hardly a blip on the history of climate.
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:53am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Restricting data is a very old trick. During demonstrations of one thing or another involving the police, they wouldn’t record the demonstrators throwing plastic bags filled with urine or excrement at police, that broke open on impact. They would only start rolling the cameras when the police pushed back at protesters or started arresting protestors, and then labelled it “police brutality against innocent protesters”.
        
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        January 17, 2020 2:34pm
- tedbear
  
  Remember back in high school chemistry class?
  Back then, real science was “when you do this”, “this will happen.”
  But now, someone says “when you do this”, “this might happen”. That isn’t science, but merely hoping nobody understands the difference.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:27am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Ah, but it is the “science” of medieval times, whereby neophytes are indoctrinated into consensus group think delivered by authority figures who must not be questioned.
    
    It is as if the scientific enlightenment never happened.
    
    Instead of nurturing an enquiring mind, whereby young children are encouraged to question assumptions behind and evidence for/against man-made climate change, teachers are expected to employ mind-manipulation techniques to subdue their little DENIERS.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:06am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Yep, it’s a conspiracy by sinister elites to control the global economy, aided and abetted by commie schoolteachers engaged in brainwashing innocent children.
      – Kiwiblog consensus.
      
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      January 17, 2020 9:10am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Well said.
      
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      January 17, 2020 9:36am
    - projectman
      
      Regrettably the level of science understanding amongst primary school teachers is generally very poor so it’s not surprising they will unquestioningly propound the official line.
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:25am
      - Sydney Alvarado
        
        Yes and science understanding in journalists and politicians is about zero. You would struggle to find a single MP with post school science qualifications.
        
        I am not a scientist, but did study physics, chem, and biology to UE and have always taken an interest.
        
        I frequently work with young economists and policy advisers who advise the Australian, Australian States, and New Zealand Governments. Almost none of them have science backgrounds. In my kit bag of advice is “Subscribe to Scientific American”.
        
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        January 17, 2020 10:48am
      - tedbear
        
        And being forced to be members of the Leftist Teachers Union won’t at all alter their stance.
        
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        January 17, 2020 4:18pm
    - Doc Holliday
      
      Yet you persistently link to crank sites.
      
      You don’t seem to know there is a difference between quoting a self-appointed “Authority” and deferring to scientific experts – especially when they agree.
      
      There is no scientific debate about AGW. It’s a robust theory. It’s not going to be overturned, any more than plate tectonics or evolution.
      
      Your list of “qualified sceptics” is hilarious.
      
      Climate denial is a cult. No science, just belief. False belief.
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:31am
      - JackRabbit
        
        “You don’t seem to know there is a difference between quoting a self-appointed “Authority” and deferring to scientific experts – especially when they agree.”
        
        It is not who is right, but what is right. Contrary to what you expound, experts are usually self-appointed, since they are the first in their field to break new ground. They have to teach themselves, and then others. Experts get results. They live in the real world.
        
        It is you that does not seem to know the difference between someone who is qualified and someone who has a qualification. The former understands his field of learning, the other simply has a piece of paper from an authority that says he passed a course of some sort and if the course was set by another person with a qualification (piece of paper) it carries on a delusion tradition.
        I repeat, It is not who is right, but what is right.
        
        “There is no scientific debate about AGW.”
        
        There is heaps of debate. It is what you are involved in right now. If you are not debating, why are you on this thread, or even on the KB blog?
        
        “Climate denial is a cult. No science, just belief. False belief.”
        
        Plenty of science is presented here by bloggers, just not science that supports your argument. Anything that does not support your argument is labelled belief.
        
        “Climate denial is a cult.” “Yet you persistently link to crank sites.”
        
        If the science was settled, which it is not, you would be able to state in plain English the logic, rather than belittling people like Maggy, who are scientists. If Stephen Hawking only belittled people who didn’t share his ideas, instead of providing proof and logic, no-one would remember who he was.
        
        Criticism, that is based on irrationality rejection and bullshit, is one of the highest accolades a scientist one can ever receive. Because you know that if the other person is emotive and no longer using logic to discuss and examine ideas, it means they have run out of logic, and lost the argument. They can often ONLY resort to quoting others, instead of calmly walking through the logic.
        
        People generally only resort to violence, taunting, ridicule, bullying, and belittling, because they do not possess a rational viewpoint. This comes from a place of hate and bitterness.
        
        People who calmly state the facts and logic, often over and over again, do so to try and educate their fellow man. In most cases they can walk through that logic, without constant reference to other’s work. In many cases, the principles they espouse can be gleaned or verified from day to day activity or first principles. These actions come from a place of love and respect of fellow human beings.
        
        You sir, are a bully and your emotional criticism is founded in hate.
        
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        January 17, 2020 1:07pm
      - coge
        
        Branding someone with a different view a “Denier” is classic cult language.
        
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        January 17, 2020 6:44pm
  - Stephen Russell
    
    It is statistics. Which is an important part of science, eg in quantum mechanics.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:09am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Now quantum mechanics is in doubt and likely being replaced by GUT-CP (Grand United Theory-Classical Physics.)
      The latter is explaining states of matter including the subatomic particles much better.
      
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      January 17, 2020 10:43am
  - SGA
    
    Remember back in high school chemistry class?
    Back then, real science was “when you do this”, “this will happen.”
    But now, someone says “when you do this”, “this might happen”. That isn’t science, but merely hoping nobody understands the difference.
    
    Yes and no. In tightly controlled experimental conditions, yes, when you do this, then this will happen. Once you start applying those findings to complex systems with all sort of interactions and feedback, then the results become less clear cut.
    
    For example, treat 10 people with the same drug for the same disease (say cancer) – it saves the lives of 5, prolongs the lives of 3, and doesn’t do much good for 2. You look over the patients’ profiles and you can’t find any clear reason (stage of cancer, age, general health, sex whatever) why these differences occurred. Something’s gone on – a combination of factors?, genetics?, whatever. The treatment is still based in science however.
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:42am
- Sacha
  
  O2 = 21% of the air that we breathe –
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:42am
- mjw
  
  Yes, John Tyndall demonstrated the warming effects in 1859. This work was later built on by many others, including Svante Arhennius. So the basic science has been established for 160 years.
  
  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Tyndall
  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Arrhenius/arrhenius_2.php
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:03am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Arrhenius admits he ignored the possible effect of Clouds as a negative feedback to the radiative forcing.
    He said it was too hard to work out as the system is too chaotic.
    Just like how the GCMs don’t account for clouds either
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:41am
- otago-man
  
  perhaps we should ban water if it is responsible for 80 % of global warming–causes a lot of drownings too
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:08am
- BobbyS
  
  So lets do the maths:
  CO2 400ppm = .0004
  20% contributor = .2
  NZ’s contribution to CO2 is 0.17% = 0.0017
  
  Total contribution = 0.000000136
  OR .0000136%
  
  So we should all ride bikes, eat nothing but veges and never fly, sail, train, bus drive ANYWHERE
  
  OK!!
  (someone check the maths for me incase i missed a few 0’s)
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:25am
  - mjw
    
    BoobyS
    
    The CO2 effect on warming is real. Follow the science. So is the impact of efforts by small countries. We can show leadership, spread the ideas and do out bit. Change only happens by example. Let’s provide an example.
    
    Also, we all have to work together – just as we did in dealing with the Ozone hole, or World Wars. Small countries only survive through collective security. That include climate security.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:45am
    - Ford Prefect
      
      The Ozone hole is a perfect example. It has not changed since CFCs were banned and actually rose to its highest level a few years ago.
      
      However, since its not in the news every single day, everyone thinks its been solved. It was never proved scientifically and the predictions from the doom- sayers never panned out. Sound familiar?
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:58am
    - rouppe
      
      The ozone hole that forms in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica each September was slightly above average size in 2018, according to NOAA and NASA scientists
      
      Aren’t “above average” temperature readings evidence of catastrophe? So an “above average” ozone hole must also be scientific evidence that none of the measures taken with respect to the ozone hole have worked?
      
      No…?
      
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      January 17, 2020 12:13pm
      - SGA
        
        I think that in both cases it is trends across time that are important (in the same way that a particular bad easter road toll doesn’t necessarily mean that the roads are getting more dangerous in general). I guess the question is whether trends in the ozone hole’s size have stabilised or decreased since the 1980s.
        
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        January 17, 2020 2:15pm
  - Sydney Alvarado
    
    Sadly this has been known for 20 years. The idea back in 2001 was that we would reduce emissions where it is cheapest to do so. Reducing 1 ton of CO2e in India can be literally hundreds of times cheaper than in New Zealand. yet we are trying to do it here and the Indians are laughing on the floor at us.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:51am
- RW Capitalist
  
  The Sun is very much larger than every scrap debris, dust particle, moon and planet in our solar system combined.
  and it’s on fire, they might want to remind me how a few billion people are responsible for this “warming”?
  As I remember the temperatures last year and we are around 5-10 deg colder this year.
  I lived in Aus. and left just before the ash wednesday fires…temps in Sydney were in the 40’s, hotter elsewhere, haven’t seen these numbers lately.
  BUT, I don’t remember 300 deliberately lit fires during Ash Wednesday.
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:33am
  - mjw
    
    The temperature datasets are showing record warming. Follow the science.
    
    There were not 300 deliberately lit fires. Many charges were for tossing out a cigaretter, or using a grinder outside. The ABC estimates that the proportion of bushfire coverage due to arson to be just 1%.
    
    The problem is the record dry and record temperature – climate change.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:31am
    - mark15
      
      Are you implying the climate has ever been static?
      
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      January 17, 2020 12:19pm
    - Tall Man
      
      I assume you’ve already bred?…
      
      Shame really.
      
      “This fire season, police have taken legal action – ranging from cautions to charges –against almost 200 people in New South Wales alone. That includes 24 people charged with deliberately lighting bushfires, 53 accused of failing to comply with the fire ban and 47 accused of discarding a lit cigarette or match.”
      
      24 doesn’t seem like 1% but maybe in a “labour brain” in could.
      
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      January 17, 2020 2:53pm
    - Local Miller
      
      Actually the temperature data sets are NOT showing warming beyond what was happening before the industrial age and the “massive” increase in CO2. The numbers are being fudged and adjusted to show what the climate alarmists want. Look up Tony Heller and watch a few of his videos. He clearly show historical graphs from places like NASA and NOAA and MoB (Australia) and compares them to the new versions of the same graphs. It is abundantly clear that the data is being changed without justification, or selective data is being used to support the required narrative.
      
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      January 17, 2020 3:15pm
  - Sydney Alvarado
    
    Last summer in New Zealand was exceptionally warm. This summer (so far) is slightly below average. That happens.
    
    I lived in the outback in 1983 during the Ash Wednesday fires. I also grew up in Sydney and have lived all over NSW. You are correct. The 1983 fires came on the back of severe drought and high temperatures. (The drought broke shortly afterwards).
    
    However it is trends that matter. Not hot days or whether it is cold in Christchurch today. I have looked at the data and I have lived and visited southern and eastern Australia for 50 years. There is no doubt that these parts of Australia have become hotter over that time, both in terms of average and extreme events. And that conclusion is not affected by the reality that there were deadly fires in 1939, 1967 and 1983, and that it was very hot then as well.
    
    I grew up in Western Sydney and it was hot (and pretty crap but that is another story). Over the last 50 years Penrith in Western Sydney has averaged 3.4 days per year over 40 degrees and 11 annual days over 35 degrees. So sure, there were hot days, but we had lots of milder days.
    
    So, what about this summer? Well it is only half over, and so far Penrith has had 10 days over 40 degrees! I didn’t even bother to count the days over 35 degrees.
    
    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/201912/html/IDCJDW2111.201912.shtml
    
    So, make no mistake, the eastern seaboard of Australia is getting hotter. Much hotter.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:17am
    - Tall Man
      
      Hotter than?
      
      2 1
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      January 17, 2020 5:17pm
- Stephieboy2
  
  I don’t want to spoonfeed climate change deniers but so be it,
  
  Causes of global warming, explained
  
  “Human activity is driving climate change, including global temperature rise.”
  
  “…One of the first things the IPCC concluded is that there are several greenhouse gases responsible for warming, and humans emit them in a variety of ways. Most come from the combustion of fossil fuels in cars, buildings, factories, and power plants. The gas responsible for the most warming is carbon dioxide, or CO2. Other contributors include methane released from landfills, natural gas and petroleum industries, and agriculture (especially from the digestive systems of grazing animals); nitrous oxide from fertilizers; gases used for refrigeration and industrial processes; and the loss of forests that would otherwise store CO2….
  
  Gaseous abilities
  Different greenhouse gases have very different heat-trapping abilities. Some of them can trap more heat than an equivalent amount of CO2. A molecule of methane doesn’t hang around the atmosphere as long as a molecule of carbon dioxide will, but it is at least 84 times more potent over two decades. Nitrous oxide is 264 times more powerful than CO2.
  
  Other gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs—which have been banned in much of the world because they also degrade the ozone layer—have heat-trapping potential thousands of times greater than CO2. But because their emissions are much lower than CO2, none of these gases trap as much heat in the atmosphere as CO2 does.
  
  When those gases that humans are adding to Earth’s atmosphere trap heat, it’s called the “greenhouse effect.” The gases let light through but then keep much of the heat that radiates from the surface from escaping back into space, like the glass walls of a greenhouse. The more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more dramatic the effect, and the more warming that happens….”
  
  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-causes/
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:03am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    You get the simpleton version from those who would see the planet fry. They take no care not to cause harm.
    It’s plain politics and control are drivers of this pusch. When is our 1970’s freezing to come true?
    Can we turn back the tide or is sensible to mitigate what damage may come to pass?
    
    Enjoy the heat:
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/16/the-cities-are-cooking/
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:49am
  - Sydney Alvarado
    
    You would be better served by having some manners and presenting some analysis rather than acting like a dick and cutting and pasting from your 10 second google search.
    
    I don’t expect commentators here to agree with everything I say (which would be disturbing!). But I treat folk with respect and I seem to be treated with respect in return. On the other hand I would never read what you post. Because you are a dick. There I said it again. And me calling someone a dick is rare. But you deserve it.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:21am
  - coge
    
    Sounds awfully scary, but once again a conspicuous absence of any accurate, replicable calculation. And how that relates to a vast, long term, stable, open, chaotic, non linear atmospheric system. In short what they are telling is incalculable. A matter of faith, rather than pure science.
    
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    January 17, 2020 6:52pm
- Positan
  
  The same lack of reason/logic/rationale/common-sense/brains promotes baseless fear of the oceans rising and inundating the unfortunates on lower ground “when the poles melt.”
  
  One simple physics-lab experiment when I was at school showed that if a tall glass container was filled with ice-cubes and then topped-off to the brim with water, the water level actually FELL as the ice melted. It’s a fact of nature, and it happens because the volume of water displaced by an ice-block is greater than the volume of the liquid it contains.
  
  But try telling that to determinedly ignorant doomsayers and self-flagellating fear-mongers. They’d probably try to tell you that laboratory ice “is different.” Bah!
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:23am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    water is weird, being a highly polar molecule, it expands as you cool it below 4°C and also as you heat it above 4°C, and one of only substances where solid is less dense than liquid.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:49am
  - rangitoto
    
    Well they are talking about ice on land melting. Mainly Greenland and Antartcica but the ice caps appear to be still there.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:52am
    - Local Miller
      
      And certainly not melting. Truth is the arctic see ice is currently at the average for this time of year, and has been higher than average for the past 2 or 3 years, and the antarctic is accumulating ice at the moment. oops.
      
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      January 17, 2020 3:19pm
- rouppe
  
  If you think about a high quality 500 thread count sheet, that has 250 threads in each direction per square inch. So 250 threads horizontally per inch.
  
  To achieve one million horizontal threads you would require a sheet 4000 inches wide. 4000 inches is just over 100 metres, or 100,000 millimeters.
  
  Now 400 parts per (million) 1,000,000 is the same as 40 parts per 100,000 so to achieve the same concentration of threads in the sheet as CO2 molecules in the atmosphere, you would have 40 threads across that (100m) 100,000mm sheet, which is one every 2,500mm, or 2.5m.
  
  Would you consider a sheet that has a thread every 2.5m to be effective as a greenhouse?
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:54am
  - Tall Man
    
    Now you just take your science and facts and just fuck off.
    
    This is about feelz, not facts 😉
    
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    January 17, 2020 2:49pm
- Justitia
  
  Thanks to everyone who contributed through the day on the issue of CO2’s alleged role in climate change. There were many interesting ideas presented throughout the discussion.
  It seems the notion that CO2 is a significant contributor to global warming rests on the belief that radiative heat transfer prevails over other forms of heat transfer such as conductivity, convection, condensation and friction. This is one for the physicists out there but this dominance does not appear to have been demonstrated in the case of the Earth’s atmosphere.
  
  It also seems the popular greenhouse analogy is misleading. In a real greenhouse it is not trapped infrared radiation that causes warming, it is the suppression of air cooling. The same effect can be seen in a parked car with the windows up on a hot day. The idea that the earth presents a natural greenhouse effect is therefore based on an unsound analogy and it is ridiculous to extrapolate predictions on such a basis.
  
  Tomorrow if time and our host permit we might look at what the UN means when it talks about holding temperature increases to well below 2 degrees centigrade above “pre-industrial levels”. Clue: does the UN itself know?
  
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  January 17, 2020 4:13pm
  - rightoverlabour
    
    If you want an in depth look at CO2 read this
    
    https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.2072 and have a look at the discussion following this
    
    https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_are_atmospheric_radiative_window_s
    
    Just googling CO2 saturation brings up a host of articles some alarmist, some sceptic. The discussions following the articles are very imformative and show if nothing else, that the science is NOT settled.
    
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    January 17, 2020 7:16pm
Raphael

So the Liberal Left is turning on noted Liberal Stephen King for saying he did his nominations for Academy Awards based on quality not diversity.

“I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality,” King tweeted this week. “It seems to me that to do otherwise would be wrong.”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=12301037
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January 17, 2020 8:07am
- cmm
  
  Coz diversity only works with hand outs.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:21am
- Thought Criminal
  
  Perhaps because he wants the nest possible outcome.
  
  What a pity he doesn’t think other people’s industries should be able to have the best possible outcomes as well.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:54am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  Of course he folded like a wet sheet when the twitterati moved to cancel him….
  
  So much for great lion of literature.
  
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  January 17, 2020 1:28pm
Maggie Pie

Sat up late last night waiting for my partner to get home from his ‘boys night out’.
I was dying to show him the post on GD from ‘greybeard’ (@6:34pm), with breaking news that Chloe Swarbrick had got herself engaged!

Honestly, you should have seen the look on his face 😛
Priceless!!!
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January 17, 2020 8:18am
- sam green
  
  Why “priceless”? You seem obsessed.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:22am
  - Tall Man
    
    You seem devoid of any intellect and certainly lack any degree of humour.
    
    Must be the “climate change” that has “stolen your brain”.
    
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    January 17, 2020 2:48pm
Minsk400

First political engagement announcement of the year (Swarbrick). Apparently engaged “for months” but confirmed at last in an election year despite being “notoriously private about the relationship”. Coincidence?
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January 17, 2020 8:32am
- Sydney Alvarado
  
  Do you think anyone cares?
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:55am
  - sam green
    
    Obviously several kiwibloggers do.
    
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    January 17, 2020 10:35am
- Graham Sharpe
  
  Note the other half is employed by the Greens on the taxpayers’ dime. Why are we not surprised?
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:17am
  - SGA
    
    I’m not. I met my wife at work.
    
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    January 17, 2020 7:07pm
- oldpark
  
  @Minsk400
  When will she tie the knot with her new wife. Maybe just ahead of the other woman called Ardern known as the Peters selected NZs PM.Just saying.
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:23am
- SGA
  
  meh, that’s a little harsh. The election is a still a bit of way off, and I can’t see Swarbrick’s engagement as attracting any votes that she wouldn’t attract anyway. Perhaps we could have a rule that all MPs can only only get engaged, married, or have babies in the first 18 months of office, but that seems a little draconian.
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:27am
- sam green
  
  Swarbrick confirmed the engagement when somebody asked her about it – hardly an announcement.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:35am
- Fletch
  
  I saw that headline this morning. I clicked on it, wondering to myself “who is the bloke”, only to find out it’s a woman. How predictable… How 2019. I really should have guessed. ?
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:49am
  - sam green
    
    Yes – that’s right – its a fashion trend.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:16am
  - SGA
    
    I saw that headline this morning. I clicked on it, wondering to myself “who is the bloke”, only to find out it’s a woman. How predictable… How 2019. I really should have guessed
    
    Ok, boomer (/tongue in cheek)
    
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    January 17, 2020 1:33pm
- toby1845
  
  I must say that I was hoping that the umlaut-touting lout would get a good licking this year, but this isn’t what I had in mind.
  
  I’ll get my coat.
  
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  January 17, 2020 3:24pm
chaos

Here we go stephie, since you refused to provide evidence that anything in this video was wrong here is your second chance to prove it all wrong, and no claiming someone didn’t like Obama is not proving anything other than you do personal attacks on people then run and hide without substituting anything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X501sN62e6o
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January 17, 2020 8:34am
- Stephieboy2
  
  Chaos, Tony Heller alias Steve Goddard?
  
  What is their to hide?
  
  It’s here,
  
  https://www.desmogblog.com/steven-goddard
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:06am
  - rightoverlabour
    
    I really ,really like desmog blog. Gives me a list of skeptics to look up in case I have missed a few.
    
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    January 17, 2020 12:34pm
- Stephieboy2
  
  “Hosted by former Australian senator, Tony Heller repeats false claim that scientists fake the warming trend”
  
  CLAIM
  
  “[T]he raw data, the actual thermometer data[…] shows that the US has been cooling for 80 to 90 years. But the graphs they release to the public show warming trend, and it’s all because they’ve altered the data.”
  
  VERDICT
  
  KEY TAKE AWAY
  
  Scientists constantly work to ensure that the data being used to estimate global average temperatures are as accurate as possible—a necessary and much-studied task. Despite the fact that different groups have developed different methods to do this, the warming trend is clear in all available datasets.
  
  More in-depth analysis follows.
  
  https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/hosted-by-former-australian-senator-tony-heller-repeats-false-claim-that-scientists-fake-the-warming-trend/
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:19am
  - coge
    
    There was no world wide temperature record being kept until comparitively recently. They had to “model” one.
    
    3 0
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    January 17, 2020 6:55pm
Michael

In light of Chris Hipkin’s releasing the proposed Child Bullying Policies for NZ Education.

The science is not settled (science cannot be settled) and he is now guilty of enabling child abuse on a wide scale. (Using ostracizement and other shaming behaviours).

Hipkins has a degree I believe and has been taught critical thought.
Therefore he cannot argue away the damage that will be inflicted on kids by zealot teachers in the classroom by coersion and bullying behaviour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ewJ6TI8ccAw&feature=youtu.be

https://principia-scientific.org
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January 17, 2020 8:35am
- Sacha
  
  “Therefore he cannot argue away the damage that will be inflicted on kids by zealot teachers in the classroom by coersion and bullying behaviour.”
  
  Who remembers the corporal punishment so liberally meted out by the nuns at Roman Catholic schools? And the priests –
  What goes around, comes around . . . . . . . .
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:47am
- tedbear
  
  Ah what goes around comes around.
  Once upon a time smacking a child in the classroom was outlawed.
  A few years on and the scam of climate change must be rammed home “Ve haf vays ov making you comply” to speed up the process of the UN’s One World Order.
  Smacking school children will now be regurgitated in the form of bullying, insulting, belittling, defaming, shaming and ostracizing.
  
  I imagine some children will take great delight in this form of bullying especially if Hitler-like teachers offer rewards for the amounts of ‘converts’ each one manages.
  
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  January 17, 2020 9:11am
  - tedbear
    
    Not so easily fooled Johnny tells his Dad “What you’ve been teaching me here at home about the climate change scam is bullshit according to my 3rd form teacher.”
    
    I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Dad storms into same classroom. Could be shades of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG1fgCHvDNQ
    
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    January 17, 2020 9:43am
  - Stephieboy2
    
    tedbear, utter piffle!
    
    3 30
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    January 17, 2020 10:21am
    - tedbear
      
      Really Stephie?
      Going on the downtick counts on every one of your contributions it looks to me your the Master of Piffle.
      
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      January 17, 2020 11:19am
- tf78
  
  May he reap what he sows.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:02am
- Andrei
  
  “Hipkins has a degree I believe and has been taught critical thought.”
  
  Yes he does have a degree – an undergraduate degree in politics and Criminology which has given him great understanding of the the statistics, non linear differential equations, thermodynamics and chaos theory that need to be understood in order to begin to gain insight into climatic systems and processes.
  
  He is actually a typical Labour MP – student politics ==> national politics.
  
  The Labour party is a joke filled with men with soft hands like him who would struggle lift a 16lb sledge let alone swing one for eight hours a day who pretend to represent the working man
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:13am
  - Paulus
    
    Isn’t his mother a Unionist and a Teacher ?
    
    5 0
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    January 17, 2020 1:45pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Education Researcher/Teacher.
      
      https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/kapiti-news/20190109/282080572976534
      
      Not a union activist
      
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      January 17, 2020 4:07pm
  - Hollyfield
    
    He may have been taught critical thought, but did he learn it?
    
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    January 17, 2020 6:49pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Hipkin’s degree adds to his culpability for child endangerment.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:53am
Michael NZ

Other Michael.
Changed my name so we are divorced 🙂
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January 17, 2020 8:40am
- chaos
  
  Did you get half his assets
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:35am
secondcumming

*RANDOM IMPERTINENT QUESTION*

Is this country totally fucked 😎

https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/01/did-todd-mcclay-sell-out-to-the-chinese/
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January 17, 2020 8:41am
- Minsk400
  
  I guess National’s position on this is that we’ve got the tiger (dragon?) by the tail and couldn’t possibly let go. I blame Helen Clark for grabbing it in the first place, but that doesn’t exculpate National from their craven subservience. Anyone remember Neville Chamberlain?
  
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  January 17, 2020 2:30pm
- Tall Man
  
  At least “what’s in it for wynston” won’t have anything to do with China eh fat whale…..
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/104254665/winston-peters-says-first-china-trip-successful-talks-peace-and-security-in-asiapacific
  
  Oops, hang on!
  
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  January 17, 2020 2:44pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9oWq9zIXTY
Rebecca Wrong Daily is the leading contender to replace the Corbynated chicken. What’s not to like?
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January 17, 2020 8:45am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmpoHuALHCc
The Democrats are doing themselves no favours.
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January 17, 2020 8:47am
plc

I’m confused.

Is taking children from or leaving them with bad parents, racist?
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January 17, 2020 8:47am
- alloytoo
  
  I think they mean “Not taking them away from good parents is racist.”
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:06am
- GoVege
  
  We wouldn’t even have the problem if we didn’t have a few vocal airheads promoting young people having babies from as young as 13 being “a good thing”.
  Many of these incredibly young parents can’t look after themselves let alone a child..or 2 or 3…
  
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  January 17, 2020 12:26pm
Yvette

The Guardian, UK, tells its international audience about New Zealand housing –

New Zealand’s waiting list for state housing hits record high.
Two years ago the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was elected on a promise that she would “fix” the housing crisis, but under her watch the wait has ballooned from 6,000 to 14,500 households.

Perhaps some of the truth –

“Such a sharp increase in just two short years can only be explained by poor government policy,” said Simon O’Connor, the National party’s housing spokesman. “Labour was too quick to meddle in the rental market when it should have been focused on building houses.
“The reason we’re in this mess today is because KiwiBuild tanked, Labour’s new rental standards scared off landlords at the affordable end of the market, and its decision to end tenancy reviews increased pressure on social housing supply.

And perhaps not so much the truth –

The government said its open and empathetic approach to leadership had led to thousands asking for help, hence the boost in demand …
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January 17, 2020 8:48am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  Lucky those people that had ‘had enough’ back 3 years ago had their say to reduce net migration down to 10,000 otherwise we’d be in an even bigger mess with housing…
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:34am
DRHILL

Statement from my dad this morning during breakfast: “New Zealand is a poor country pretending to be a rich one like Australia”
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January 17, 2020 8:52am
- sam green
  
  Australia has mineral wealth which is capitalised by a few companies – Australia is not rich – a few people and few companies are.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:19am
  - GoVege
    
    Sam, I’ve heard that casual labourers in Oz get paid close to $30 an hour…plus their accommodation costs are generally much lower.
    
    10 1
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    January 17, 2020 12:29pm
    - Paulus
      
      Understand that there is now Australian Companies seeking New Zealand Building Labourers to help repair the bushfire wrecks – per hour rates not relevant to New Zealand.
      
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      January 17, 2020 1:49pm
    - sam green
      
      and …
      
      1 10
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      January 17, 2020 1:59pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Your response shows the problem, ignorance of real world outcomes.
        
        7 1
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        January 17, 2020 2:39pm
      - Jack5
        
        And ….
        
        CIA World Factbook 2017 figures on GDP per capita:
        
        Australia: $US50,400, and 29th in world.
        New Zealand: $US39,000, and 38th in world.
        
        6 0
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        January 17, 2020 3:01pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Jack, that is a massive difference bearing in mind that it is disposable income above the cost of existence that is the measure of how well off we believe ourselves to be.
        
        Could a family really survive well in a major city with twice the average income coming in… Less tax in NZ?
        
        4 1
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        January 17, 2020 5:04pm
    - Tall Man
      
      Food, fuel, medical (through medicare etc) cheaper and more available, penal rates still in most industries but maybe it the extra 45% in productivity their workers generate that makes the difference……..
      
      Here, people like sam just think someone else will pay so she’ll be right…
      
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      January 17, 2020 2:39pm
      - sam green
        
        Tall story shorty.
        
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        January 18, 2020 11:24am
Bobba Fret

So Westpac are first big bank to announce they will pay a living wage to suppliers and contractors at $21.15. That made them the “good guys” among the big banks. I see now they have announced redundancies or relocation of 200 of their IT staff.
I know they are different departments etc. but I wonder if it is a consequence of paying higher amounts here, but can save somewhere else.
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/money/company-news/westpac-forcing-250-wellington-workers-to-relocate-or-take-redundancy/ar-BBZ0h2O?ocid=spartanntp
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January 17, 2020 8:55am
- Groggy
  
  hahaha false equivalency, as if any IT staff would be paid anywhere near as low as the living wage.
  
  “The bank said the decision was motivated by a new opportunity to acquire more floor space at the bank’s headquarters in Auckland’s Britomart precinct”
  
  Overhead reduction.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:26am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Pay more to some and shed others to meet the bills.
    
    8 2
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    January 17, 2020 10:55am
    - Groggy
      
      But they won’t be shed, just relocated. And then they will realise there is a lot of IP tied up in a few heads that they have lost, and bring them back as consultants on twice the hourly rate, weekly flights to Auckland, and apartments to put them up in. Net result an overall increase in costs.
      
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      January 17, 2020 5:08pm
- GJM
  
  Of course, most of the jobs paying c
  Less than this magic rate are outsourced, such as cleaners or are contractors. Easy way to virtue signal without it costing anything.
  
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  January 17, 2020 8:56pm
plc

So the current leadership race looks like the UK Labour Party’s suicide note.

15000 new members in the past month…..most supposedly from a Momentum base.
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January 17, 2020 9:01am
- Graham Sharpe
  
  Many of the new members will be Tories signing up to ensure the new leader is an extremist on the Left. This will make a Labour loss at the next two elections an absolute certainty.
  
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  January 17, 2020 12:04pm
  - curry4me
    
    Just like when Jeremy Corbyn was elected. You’d think they’d have learned from that, and close membership applications for the duration?
    
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    January 17, 2020 7:25pm
plc

Add James Neesham to Climate Change hypocrites

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12301148
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January 17, 2020 9:12am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  Nearly threw his phone against the wall 4 times during the Plunkett/Shaw interview. Apart from all of the injuries I can now see why Neesham doesnt get picked for the Black Caps as often as his talent suggests he should
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:48am
  - plc
    
    The car is the giveaway…..
    
    8 1
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    January 17, 2020 12:40pm
MCos

Chief Justice: “Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?”
Senators: “I do.”

What sort of a farce is this?
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January 17, 2020 9:23am
- Doc Holliday
  
  That Mitch McConnell has already told Trump the verdict is “not guilty”.
  
  The Republicans doing their god’s work
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:14am
Jack5

Microsoft has followed Amazon by tapping into the climate change panic. It has pledged to remove more carbon dioxide from the air than it has put out.

How much carbon dioxide does a software company make?

Microsoft aims to be “carbon neutral” by 2030, compared with Amazon’s 2040 target. Microsoft and Amazon are both big players in computer “server” farms. Amazon makes more from its Amazon Web Services than it does from its online retailing.

The BBC reports Microsoft as saying this is some of the ways it can act:

– By creating new forests and expanding existing ones.

– By putting carbon back into the ground. This could be achieved by adding microbes to parched earth.

– By direct air capture, possibly by using large fans to move air through a filter that can remove the gas.

– By bio-energy with carbon capture – growing crops and then capturing the CO2 they emit when, for example, they are burned to produce heat or fermented to make fuels such as bioethanol.

If you shell out $200 for the most basic version of Windows 10, you will help Microsoft in its climate-change marketing.

Three cheers for the Linux crowd!

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51133811
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January 17, 2020 9:30am
- KevO'Brien
  
  I suspect win 10 is presently self destructing. Users don’t own the software and MS is heaping on more and more hidden modules aimed at marketing.
  
  The fate of software is to get overloaded with upgrades to the point where the creators cannot fix the mess they create.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:01am
- rangitoto
  
  Microsoft like Amazon AWS, run massive datacentres around the world that they use for their Azure hosting platform. These consume a lot of electricity. I presume the Azure sites in many countries would be mostly powered by burning coal.
  
  Azure sites: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/regions/
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:04am
  - Stephieboy2
    
    rangitoto,
    
    “Britain’s electricity since 2010: wind surges to second place, coal collapses and fossil fuel use nearly halves”
    
    In 2010, Great Britain generated 75% of its electricity from coal and natural gas. But by the end of the decade*, these fossil fuels accounted for just 40%, with coal generation collapsing from the decade’s peak of 41% in 2012 to under 2% in 2019
    .
    The near disappearance of coal power – the second most prevalent source in 2010 – underpinned a remarkable transformation of Britain’s electricity generation over the last decade, meaning Britain now has the cleanest electrical supply it has ever had. Second place now belongs to wind power, which supplied almost 21% of the country’s electrical demand in 2019, up from 3% in 2010. As at the start of the decade, natural gas provided the largest share of Britain’s electricity in 2019 at 38%, compared with 47% in 2010.
    
    https://theconversation.com/britains-electricity-since-2010-wind-surges-to-second-place-coal-collapses-and-fossil-fuel-use-nearly-halves-129346
    
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    January 17, 2020 12:07pm
- greybeard
  
  Most of the people working for MS have probably never seen a tree, walked barefoot, seen birds or animals in their natural environment, or cooked a meal from scratch.
  
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  January 17, 2020 5:41pm
Maggie Pie

Honestly, you would have to wonder at the mindset of the dickhead who logs in here, just so they can ‘downtick’ everything I post – and without even reading it.
What. a. total. f~~king. goose!
The ONLY person I ever do that to is Stephieboy 😛
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January 17, 2020 9:30am
- Stephieboy2
  
  Maggie Pie,
  
  there fixed for you. Another downtick!
  
  5 28
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  January 17, 2020 12:09pm
  - sooty
    
    Dear Maggie Pie Iup tick everytime and downtick stephie everytime!
    
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    January 17, 2020 12:29pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Thanks for that Steph 😀
    
    And correction to my original post: ‘What. a. total. f~~king. goose!’
    
    Should read: ‘What. a. bunch. of. c~~ts!’
    
    18 6
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    January 17, 2020 12:32pm
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Maggie Pie, very deep.
      
      1 9
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      January 17, 2020 4:24pm
Yvette

Last year school students – about the age that the Government’s new climate indoctrination syllabus is aimed at – took to the streets to protest Government inaction over climate concerns.

In this Election year is the teaching programme to –
1 – have students parrot policy for the benefit of voter parents, or
2 – to still take to the streets to protest Government inaction over climate concerns?

What exactly does the Government hope to achieve, and at what cost to the wellbeing of children / young adults?

Has the Winston Peters-chosen Government done enough yet in the area of mental health for the system to cater for the children mentally maimed in the climate syllabus, since one booklet “Climate Change – Prepare today, live well tomorrow” is the teacher resource on climate change itself, while a second booklet “Climate Change – Wellbeing guide” that on it last page says –

IF A CHILD IS SELF-HARMING, OR THINKING OF SUICIDE, GET HELP IMMEDIATELY
• Contact the local Mental Health Crisis Team: 0800 611 116 or call 111. Alternatively, take the child or young person to the nearest hospital emergency department.
 • Stay with your child and ensure safety (remove any means for the person to hurt themselves).
 • Stay calm and listen (without judgement) to anything they may want to talk about.

Did Winston and Ardern not hear how pissed off Greta was at her stolen childhood?
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January 17, 2020 9:34am
- MCos
  
  The days of parrot fashion learning have gone. Things have changed since your day.
  Strident opinions are far more likely to be picked up from social media or parents, if the kids will actually talk to them.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:00am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    The days of parrot fashion learning have gone
    
    You clearly haven’t looked at the 2 resource documents for the Climate Change Learning Programme
    https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-resources/Education-for-sustainability/Tools-and-resources#collapsible1
    
    In particular, I would direct your attention to p.38
    “Climate Myths” of Climate Change – Prepare Today, Live well tomorrow.
    
    Climate Catechism for the unthinking.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:25am
    - alloytoo
      
      That is a frightening collection of propaganda, lies and strawmen.
      
      12 1
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      January 17, 2020 2:04pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Yep, it’s a worry.
        
        So….. it might be time for you to check your worry/stress level on the “Feelings Thermometer” (p.13)
        
        or perhaps it might help if you keep an Emotion Temperature diary for the next week (p.6)
        
        or even better…..why not write down some of your feelings…..(Feelings Splash, p.13; Appendix 4).
        
        Let’s start with one beginning with C.
        or R,
        or A
        or P.
        
        7 1
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        January 17, 2020 2:45pm
- Doc Holliday
  
  The nutty climate deniers are fighting to destroy their future.
  
  Of course they’re worried.
  
  Especially when they see even normal adults not doing much to address the problem.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:09am
- Minsk400
  
  I never got how she was so angry. The boomers stole her dreams? Everyone has a choice in how they react to something (except apparently the perpetually offended). They can get morbid or they can choose another response. She stole her childhood through her elected response (morbidity) to climate change.
  
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  January 17, 2020 2:36pm
  - tf78
    
    I think Greta’s comments/outbursts were really directed at her parents.
    
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    January 17, 2020 4:42pm
GazzaW

It seems as though Wall Street is deeply concerned about the Trump ‘impeachment’ as the Dow index moves to a very comfortable record high level and starts to close in on the 30,000 mark. I recall that the index sat around 18,0000 when Trump secured the Presidency and the doom merchants predicted a fall to around 13,000.

I doubt that it will rate a mention in the NZ media.
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January 17, 2020 9:43am
- MCos
  
  The NZ stock exchange has raced upwards at a great rate over the last few years.
  Everyone’s got to put their money somewhere and interest rates, gold are sagging.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:47am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Funnily enough, those who link Trump with stock prices don’t seem to link our government with such indicators. Why is that?
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:25am
    - fernglas
      
      Largely because our stock market is at the mercy of those overseas, and whatever our government does, or doesn’t do, really doesn’t make any difference.
      
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      January 17, 2020 1:52pm
    - artemisia
      
      ‘Everyone’s got to put their money somewhere’.
      
      Sell a rental or two and there’s a lazy mil or two looking for a home. Happy sellers can only do one luxury cruise at a time.
      
      3 0
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      January 17, 2020 6:43pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  The index is independent of Trump. The FED’s constant creation of money is what is feeding the market indices.
  Will that eventually wipe the USA out? Such “free” money has to be richly rewarded by investment in production or otherwise the interest drag, if nothing else, will cause havoc. New FED money going into the stock market, directly or indirectly is a recipe for ultimate disaster. That same FED money finds its way here too through the global banking system–hence our inflated house prices.
  
  If you are concerned that global warming is going to get you, be much more concerned about the demonstrated historical realities of money games in high places.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:13am
Jack5

A balance to hype on our “rock-star” economy from the financial-sector polyannas and politicians.

Michael Reddell writes on the tradables sector of the NZ economy – the primary sector (agriculture, forestry, fishing, and mining), the manufacturing sector, and exports of services:

“In per capita terms, there has been no growth at all in (this indicator of) the tradables sector since about 2002. That is 17 years now. The economy is increasingly concentrated in the non-tradables sector, the bits (generally) not very exposed to international competition.

And a Reddell comparison with Australia:

“Over the decades, New Zealand average productivity (real GDP per hour worked) has kept dropping further behind Australia’s – roughly 42 per cent ahead of us now, compared to about 25 per cent in 1970. And yet OECD data suggest our real exchange rate has risen relative to Australia’s over that half-century.”

https://croakingcassandra.com/2020/01/16/decomposing-the-nz-economy-and-australias/
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January 17, 2020 9:54am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Australia’s economy is based on digging up dirt and shipping it overseas or drilling for oi/gas and doing likewise.
  
  Its manufacturing economy is disappearing fast and much of the rest of the economy is similar to NZ, agriculture and tourism.
  
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  January 17, 2020 11:34am
  - Jack5
    
    That’s not what Michael Reddell found, FightingTemerarie.
    
    He says about Australia:
    
    The mining line didn’t surprise me – it was the story I expected to be telling – but the others did, including the continued strong growth of services exports. Back in 2014 and 2015 it looked as though something similar was happening on both sides of the Tasman, but no longer: services exports here (per capita) have simply stagnated again.
    
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    January 17, 2020 12:12pm
  - artemisia
    
    We have billions under the ground and under the rather large amount of sea we control.
    
    It’s just that we are not allowed to dig up coal, oil, gas, gold, iron sands, rock phosphate and rare earth minerals.
    
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    January 17, 2020 6:46pm
tedbear

This version is even better to sum up this appalling indoctrination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U
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January 17, 2020 10:14am
tedbear

Perhaps in the very near future Teslas, trains, ships and other forms of transport plus all forms of electricity generation will be made out of, and powered by materials that weren’t dug out of the ground.
The Greens clearly condone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UcHwQwMuVY mining for the stuff required to manufacture aluminium to make things like EVs, wind turbines and solar farms and in the same breath they’re screaming about forests and animal habitats being destroyed at a phenomenal rate.
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January 17, 2020 10:47am
- alloytoo
  
  They’re also ok with chopping down forests to make way for Wind farms.
  
  15 1
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  January 17, 2020 11:07am
  - tedbear
    
    So killing thousands of birds.
    But we can’t have any more hydro power because they care about a few snails.
    
    13 2
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    January 17, 2020 11:37am
    - Aliog
      
      There are lots of reasons to dislike wind turbines, but they kill far fewer birds than lots of static infrastructure and a tiny fraction of what cats kill.
      
      2 8
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      January 17, 2020 12:47pm
  - cmm
    
    And chopping down forests in USA,
    then shipping them by truck to the harbour,
    then loading them on ships,
    then shipping them to the UK,
    then onto trucks,
    then burning the trees,
    for UK to meet its sustainable emissions targets by burning biomass instead of fossil fuels.
    
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    January 17, 2020 11:56am
    - alloytoo
      
      I wasn’t aware that CO2 from more recently dead trees behaved differently than CO2 from long dead trees.
      
      The argument I suppose is that recently dead trees are replaceable (as Carbon Sinks), however by they time a replacement tree has sequestered the same amount of CO2 as it’s recently deceased relative, the world will have already ended.
      
      Burning waste would seem to me to be more environmentally sound.
      
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      January 17, 2020 12:20pm
- Nermal
  
  When everyone has to use EVs will our world look like an apocalypse movie with dead cars and trucks lining all the roads?
  
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  January 17, 2020 2:56pm
cmm

On RNZ this morning a spat between different scientists:

Environmentalists: Feral pigs on Auckland Islands need to be eliminated because they kill birds and earthworms.

Medical: These are very special pigs that have been isolated for centuries and are valuable for medical purposes.

I think Trump’s solution sounds best. Build a beautiful WALL.
Keep the piggies on one side, limiting the destruction they can do, while still preserving them for medical science.

If the correct location is selected then only a 5 km wall is required. It does not even have to be Mexican proof – pigs have not yet figured out how to use ladders or cutters.

PS Yes, I know pigs can swim, but there are ways around that.
16 1
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January 17, 2020 12:04pm
- alloytoo
  
  Wouldn’t it be easier to build a 10 ft wall around the environmentalists?
  
  17 1
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  January 17, 2020 12:12pm
- Tall Man
  
  They can fly as well, if the coalition’s promises are to be believed.
  
  5 2
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  January 17, 2020 1:53pm
- MCos
  
  From what I understand feral pigs are a pest in NZ along with deer, possums, wallabies, rabbits, stoats etc.
  I heard a discussion about Darwin & Wallace this morning. They hit the nail on the head. Some or all these animals are capable of multiplying at a tremendous rate, but they didn’t in jolly England due to a variety of restraints. Bring them out here where the environment is different and they go mad.
  Koala, if introduced here, could go one of two ways. Die out or adapt and flourish. Maybe double in size and become another pest.
  Humans are the one species that can adapt the environment to suit themselves and press on. For the meantime anyway.
  Sooner or later there’s only one survivor. Nature.
  
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  January 17, 2020 1:59pm
Swifty

Yet again young Greenies expose themselves as extremists, alarmists and general ninnies but continually pulling out the ‘crisis’ word for anything that clashes with their world view that everything should be free:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/118854795/student-loan-arrest-debt-at-crisis-level

Babies.
19 1
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January 17, 2020 12:09pm
- Ruahine
  
  64 people at the IRD on just overseas student loan debt recovery. Cost analysis?
  Any way, pay your debts like everyone else. Y’now like taxes, mortgages, rates, credit cards, speeding fines etc.
  Once upon a time someone being ‘Green’ meant silly stupid or perhaps inexperienced. Good description still.
  
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  January 17, 2020 12:47pm
- graham
  
  Meh. I’ve got a more accurate headline for them:
  
  “Number of people who think it’s perfectly okay to skip the country while owing tens of thousands of dollars reaches crisis level – harsher penalties needed”
  
  16 0
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  January 17, 2020 1:44pm
  - Swifty
    
    Very well put graham.
    
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    January 17, 2020 3:29pm
Stephieboy2

Many thanks. I guess one thing is for sure you can’t reason with the deluded !
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January 17, 2020 12:11pm
- herb1
  
  I guess one thing is for sure you can’t reason with the deluded !
  
  thankyou for finally admitting we’ve all bee right about you Stephie.
  Its just sad you’re the only one who dosent realise
  
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  January 17, 2020 3:37pm
Maggie Pie

Was just about to do my promised ‘Hot X Bun’ post and I suddenly see on the CCTV
my partners mum is coming up the driveway carrying her togs.

Will have to postpone till later…..
12 3
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January 17, 2020 12:45pm
mjw

Ok, so climate deniers are now
1 ignoring the data
2 ignoring the science
3 drawing false analogies
4 cherry picking effects and data

Seriously, this is teaching flat-earth society levels of blindness and anti-science.

So I guess that is the point now reached by denilaists. Tell me if you would, if the Earth also flat? And if not, how do you know!
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January 17, 2020 1:47pm
- alloytoo
  
  @mJW “So I guess that is the point now reached by denilaists. Tell me if you would, if the Earth also flat? And if not, how do you know!”
  
  Simple really, the flat earth is assumed by the climate models, it is logically wrong.
  
  https://www.pnas.org/content/116/39/19330.short?rss%3D1
  
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  January 17, 2020 6:44pm
  - mjw
    
    Ok, thanks for proving my point.
    
    2 7
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    January 17, 2020 7:23pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Oh dear,
      you didn’t know the climate models are based on Flat Earths, did you?
      
      https://notrickszone.com/2019/10/06/flawed-models-flat-earth-climate-simulations-overstate-co2-falsify-sun-and-aerosols/
      
      5 2
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      January 17, 2020 8:19pm
      - Tall Man
        
        I think we have only just scratched the surface of what mjw doesn’t know…
        
        4 2
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        January 17, 2020 8:42pm
      - Doc Holliday
        
        Crank site.
        
        Locally flat. A perfectly reasonable approximate for small area.
        
        In any case don’t need computer modelling to know Earth is warming and the explanation is enhanced greenhouse effect.
        
        Is there no limit to your stupidity?
        
        0 7
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        January 17, 2020 9:28pm
      - Stephieboy2
        
        Tall Man,
        
        “I think we have only just scratched the surface…”
        
        Oh sure…
        
        0 4
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        January 17, 2020 9:31pm
      - alloytoo
        
        Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States Of America is a crank website?
        
        Doc Holiday heads directly for the argumentum ad hominem.
        
        0 0
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        January 17, 2020 10:17pm
    - mjw
      
      Thanks for proving my point again. Responding with rhetoric rather than science. Keep going if you like. 🙂
      
      0 5
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      January 17, 2020 9:37pm
Paulus

Hear from the Greens that now that we no longer have plastic bags we are using up trees to make paper bags to replace the single plastic one stripping the forests using the wood to make the paper bags.
I understand that nearly all our paper bags are sourced from Malaysia along with our News print.
The paper quality at the price is cheaper.
It appears that only our Loo paper is genuine Kiwi.
10 1
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January 17, 2020 1:56pm
- alloytoo
  
  What disturbs me is that they’re genuinely single use and tear often before you get to the car.
  
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  January 17, 2020 10:20pm
Nickc2

I think this video defines what Man Made Climate change is all about. Many of us have been espousing similar thought for years but to have a rabid Leftie come out and agree with us is rather illuminating.
I doubt it will be allowed to be viewed in schools in conjunction with the newly released Climate Change curriculum. Enjoy and pass it on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSlAiILiuUQ

An add-on to the above video:
Piers Richard Corbyn (born 10 March 1947) is an English weather forecaster who owns forecasting website WeatherAction. He is the elder brother of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Early life and education
Corbyn was born in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and grew up at Yew Tree Manor, in Shropshire, a 17th-century country house which was once part of the Duke of Sutherland’s Lilleshall estate.

He began recording weather and climate patterns at the age of five, constructing his own observation equipment. He attended Castle House School and Adams’ Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire. At 18 he went to Imperial College London, being awarded a first class BSc degree in physics in 1968. He commenced postgraduate research there into superconductivity, but then went into student representation and politics for some years. In 1979 he returned to postgraduate study at Queen Mary College, University of London, being awarded an MSc in Astrophysics in 1981.
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January 17, 2020 2:21pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Awesome video!
  
  7 2
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  January 17, 2020 3:00pm
- Stephieboy2
  
  Corbyn { elder brother of Jeremy } characterises climate science as a tool of “globalists” and sees George Soros as a kingpin in a global movement of “globalist elites” who are using climate science as a cover for deindustrialising the West”
  
  “He also told The Guardian that former prime minister Margaret Thatcher plotted to popularise and endorse the science of man-made climate change, as a way of converting Britain from coal to nuclear power, to defeat striking miners”
  
  And so on…
  
  https://www.desmog.co.uk/piers-corbyn
  
  Sigh! Msc in Astrophysics or not!
  
  1 18
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  January 17, 2020 4:21pm
- tf78
  
  Nick, thank you so much for that – just what I needed for my sanity. Can’t believe he’s Jeremy Corbyn’s brother – seems like a great guy.
  
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  January 17, 2020 6:00pm
Raphael

RIP Chris Tolkien.
https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2020/01/christopher-tolkien-has-died

It is with great sadness that we can confirm that Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien has died aged 95.

Christopher was born in Leeds, United Kingdom, on 21 November 1924. After a childhood in Oxford, he joined the RAF during the Second World War and was stationed to South Africa. After the war, he finished his studies and became a lecturer in Old and Middle English as well as Old Icelandic at the University of Oxford. After his father’s death in 1973, he became the literary executor of the Tolkien Estate and went on to edit and publish his father’s unpublished material starting with The Silmarillion in 1977 and ending with The Fall of Gondolin in 2018.

Upon hearing the news, Tolkien Society Chair, Shaun Gunner, said:

All of us in the Tolkien Society will share in the sadness at the news of Christopher Tolkien’s death, and we send our condolences to Baillie, Simon, Adam, Rachel and the whole Tolkien family at this difficult time. Christopher’s commitment to his father’s works have seen dozens of publications released, and his own work as an academic in Oxford demonstrates his ability and skill as a scholar. Millions of people around the world will be forever grateful to Christopher for bringing us The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, The History of Middle-earth series and many others. We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed.

Tolkien scholar Dr Dimitra Fimi reflected on Christopher’s academic contribution:

Tolkien studies would never be what it is today without Christopher Tolkien’s contribution. From editing The Silmarillion to the mammoth task of giving us the History of Middle-earth series, he revealed his father’s grand vision of a rich and complex mythology. He gave us a window into Tolkien’s creative process, and he provided scholarly commentary that enriched our understanding of Middle-earth. He was Middle-earth’s cartographer and first scholar.

The Tolkien Society sends its deepest condolences to the Tolkien family.
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January 17, 2020 3:19pm
Prince

Man who owns a restaurant called ‘Fush’ finds it disrespectful that Burgerfuel’s name for a burger. ‘Hoki Dokey’, could cause mispronunciation of a maori word, Hoki.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118864240/the-problem-with-burgerfuels-new-hoki-dokey-burger

Hmm.
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January 17, 2020 8:39pm
- JackRabbit
  
  His hypocritical attitude has turned many people off the place, resulting in “No Fushing”.
  
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  January 18, 2020 9:08am
Tall Man

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/front-page-top-stories/news/article.cfm?c_id=698&objectid=12300812&ref=rss

Hands up if you think the little shit will be an entitled little git.
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January 17, 2020 8:43pm
- Stephieboy2
  
  Hooreld desperate for ” news”?
  
  3 4
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  January 17, 2020 9:33pm
  - Rodney Randall
    
    An uptick for Stephieboy.
    broken clock and all
    
    0 0
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    January 17, 2020 10:59pm
- Rodney Randall
  
  “she called the police.”
  
  time wasting, histrionic, mad cow.
  
  0 0
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  January 17, 2020 10:57pm

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