Pacific
This thread is for discussion of Pacific aspects of global warming.
Climate Conversation Group
Taking the heat out of global warming
For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow
For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow
the sane ones, while those of us who say it is not are now the lunatics.
Latest climate models v. reality
As the models continue to leave actual temperature readings in their dust, sizeable warming halted about 1995 — although it might resume at any time. It must hasten to have any hope of catching up with the predictions.
If you claim warming continues, we want evidence of continued warming — eminently reasonable. Making us wait for 17 years for that evidence invites us to doubt you.
Claiming that warming hasn't stopped is the same as claiming it has — and both are ridiculous, for nobody knows the future. The best you can do is describe the past.
Click graph for larger version.
A Growing La Nina Chills Out the Pacific
On Monday last, Auntie Herald ran an article re the Olympians from Tuvalu and accompanied the story with a pic of the runway built on one of the larger atolls by US forces during WWII. The caption mentioned (absolutely out of context!) that Tuvalu ‘is threatened by Global Warming’. This is nonsense – Tuvalu’s environmental problems are well documented and arise from the Tuvaluans’ attempts to cope with the population outgrowing the natural resources of their tiny chain of atolls.
Why is Auntie continuing to promote this particular fiction and presenting it as fact?
“Pollution fears over proposed nickle (sic) plant in Noumea”
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/pollution-fears-over-proposed-nickle-plant-in-noumea-5428489/video
This clip appeared on TVOne last night (Sunday 5th May 2013)
The clip discusses the “skyrocketing pollution” that will be caused by the coal fired power driving the Nickel plant. Of course, the “pollution” that gets mentioned several times in the clip is CO2.
The problem here is that New Caledonia will be potentially the largest CO2 emitter per capita in the world as a result. This is not an enviable position if you want to be at the same negotiating table as Tuvalu, Kiribati and other pacific nations with their climate change begging bowls out.
Elsewhere, we learn that “The French ecology and energy minister, Delphine Batho, says the government has been trying to persuade SLN’s parent company, Eramet, to use gas instead of coal despite its higher costs”
http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2013/April/04-26-08.htm
So,the reality appears to be that they are quite happy to continue with Nickel production in NC, which is a billion dollar industry, and continue to use fossil fuels. They just don’t want to use coal, because it would make them the “biggest polluter”
No one wants to be top of the Bad Boys list, especially a pacific island which is a soft touch placement for French bureaucrats.
So TVOne plaster our screens with pictures of open cast mining, large trucks, smoke stacks, and repeat the word “pollution” several times, when the truth is a little more circumspect.
The tropical Pacific Ocean has transitioned from last winter’s El Niño conditions to a cool La Niña