90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ: Weak US jobs signal QEII; Currency wars rage; SCF puts Mr Apple on block

Worth watching - there has been an absolute flood of new listings onto the NZ housing market in the past few weeks:

http://www.interest.co.nz/charts/real-estate/houses-sale

As a consequence unsold inventory seems to be rocketing up, and is challenging the levels seen in late-2008 when house prices last started to crumble.

The listings value is now at 97.0 (and rising) - this time last year (when the dead cat bounce was in the process of happening) the level was 83.0. Two years ago the listings value was also at about 97.0 (and rising).

So thats the supply side being flooded.

Meanwhile on the demand side?

Mortgage approvals data is absolutely dire, way below last year (25% below and falling):

http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/monfin/c16/download.html

hmmm - rocketing supply and collapsing demand. I need someone clever like Lolly Newland to decipher wot happens next...........

 "Sorry Tim-Boy bullying the Chinese to re-value won’t change anything, the reason no one is creating jobs in USA is because of you and people like you"

and your boss....Barry Obama!

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article23386.html

Trichet states that...."while debt in the euro zone has increased by more than 20 percent in only four years and by 35 to 40 percent over the same time period in the US and Japan, we have very little, if anything, to show for it." 

No amount of new debt, created currency, is going to alleviate the problem. National self interest is about to take centre-stage in earnest.

andyh - Also things must be starting to get desperate for Harcourts, they have now commenced advertising on TradeMe, which they have never done previously.

Regarding Mr Apple... with the Kiwi @ USD.75+ & .46+ to GBP, this operation won't be a going concern.

The Value will be in the Land with Irrigation/Consents... Betcha this goes overseas... Betcha.

Noddyland is running bubblenomics with Bolly blowing in one end and the banks extracting the revenue at the other. Funny as a fart. Hey...there's an idea Bolly...don't blow...you know!

Yes the SCF bag of apples will likely be snapped up by a foreign entity using some of that Fed toilet paper Ben is printing in his head. How else can the rural bubble be protected! Soooo many National rumpers yet to cash in the capital gains and be ahead of the Elephant....gotta stay in front of those legs....letter to the OIO...."Priority will be given to whomever is prepared to pay a bubble price" 

Harold 'Hal' Lewis Emeritus Prof of Physics Resigns from American Physical Society due to global warming scam

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Fellow APS, AAAS; Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study

Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.<

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.
Hal

Interesting piece in The Australian about Tegel, which is on the block, and they reckon could fetch NZ$1 billion - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/food-firms-sc…

The food scramble continues.

It seems there are still plenty of Real Estate agents around refusing to work in more productive sectors of our economy - carrots planting or manufacturing double glazed windows - opps!

Resene are offering gigs watching paint dry ?

Bernard , Did you see what the French Finance minister said at the IMF about currency wars 

"I'm not in the mind or in the mood for war, this is totally inadequate, inappropriate and unnecessary," French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said.

Typical of the French , when ever there is a war the French either refuse to accept there is a war or say they do not have the stomach for such things.

The problem is that everyone is now reacting defensively to devaluations , and Its just a matter of time before major exporters like Germany start to get hurt , and worst case they leave the Euro and devalue .

China on the other hand has a quite unique and different approach . The effectively neutralize all US$ earnings domestically  

Basically all US$ earned by Chinese factories are taken away from them by the Chinese Central bank ( ie The factories cant spend in US$ ) The Central bank issues Yuan to the factories. This ensures that no US manufactures enter the Chinese economy . The US $ are then invested back into the US.

When the Americans finally wake up to this rort of the free trade system by the Chinese  ,   they are going to be really angry , and quite rightly so 

This week in NZ

Today. Credit card spending stats.

Thursday  BNZ PMI Manufacturing. The last number was below 50.

REINZ Sep house prices. Price declines will likely see more headlines

Retail Sales.  expect an annual increase in retail sales of +1-+1.5%

NZ. Crown accounts will illustrate NZ’s rising debt level.

Friday   www.interest.co.nz goes mad with "i told you so" posts after REINZ figures show steep decline in sales

Saturday  an upsurge in PI's jumping off cliffs like suicidal lemmings !!

http://www.mortgagerates.co.nz/article/976497421/growth-in-mortgage-lending-slows.html

If you get the chance check out Buttonwoods comments(The Economist) on the the drop in UK house prices 3.6% in a month!

www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2010/10/british_house_prices

I lived through the 90 to 96 property crash in the UK not pleasant, thats possibly why I have been renting since 2007

When the real decline starts in the housing market here property will become as un loved as an investment asset as the NZ Stock market has been since 1987 which incidently offers some of the best dividend returns in the world

steven,
This is what you wrote:

Quote:

"exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago"

This I assume was his speech commenting on the rising power of the military-industrail complex corrupting democracy, an absolute fantastic speech.....nothing to do with scientists....

Just goes to show that some of these old farts seem to think they won the cold war to only lose it to "water melons" really they are out there ultra-conserative or liberatian crackpots....

endquote

This is taken from the actual content of the speech:

Quote:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

End quote

from here: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

Did you make a mistake, or did you purposely mislead people reading your comment about the actual content?
You think it was "an absolutely fantastic speech", yet you didn't know it contained the scientific aspect?

As always, I like to check the facts :)

local buyers and local private equity funds can affoard mr apple but i doubt they will want to pay up for such a crap asset.

"Expect the market to soon display its normal fickle promiscuity in reverse: warmly embracing weaker-than-expected economic data while shrugging off its recent fondness for strong data."

One week ago (4/10), Albert Edwards made this prognostication. And how did we greet the US empolyment figures last Friday ?! "Batten down the hatches". boys....

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/10/04/bearish-socgen-analysts-batten-down-the-hatches/

steven & powerdownkiwi,
I would talk nicely to both of you, but once you started throwing stupid juvenile accusations you lost all credibility, and certainly any respect I might have had for fellow Humans.

So stop trying it on making out I'm not honest and scientific.

You're the ones trying to continue this fraud.

You're the ones throwing the antilocution about.

You're instant response is ad-hom attacks of a distinguished scientist.

You both make me sick., sick ,sick, sick to my stomach.

Oh steven,

One last thing, I see Kate shut you up LOL.

There's nothing like facts to expose an idiot :)

As a social scientist - my area of special interest is the relationship between policy/politics and science/"experts" (I use "  " where experts are concerned becuase indeed our society has many experts - steve netwriter and pdk being examples, because of the wide extent of their own personal research and reading and thinking, but lay expertise is highly discriminated against in our political/governmental system). 

I love science, I find it fascinating and I admire people with intellect in the physical and natural sciences greatly.  But NZ environmental management has turned into a racket.  Scientists have become largely "experts-for-hire", not only here but the world over, and many of the "facts" produced for resource consent hearings and the like are mistrusted by the general public (and often for very good reason).  Scientific knowledge becomes "owned" by the commissioner of such studies - and such knowledge is often selectively used in resource consent hearings and the like.

I highly recommend the following article which encapsulates the very serious nature of the problem of a loss of trust in science by society;

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v3/n8/full/embor093.html 

For me - I'm an AGW agnositic - I don't need proof - I can see and know from simple observation that we're destroying our resources, overfishing our seas, over-populating our cities etc etc.  I am bitter about the amount of money, for example, that local government has spent on trying to "plan" for sea level rise - where the "forecasts"  coming out of the IPCC change wildly from year to year... not to mention its just plain old common sense from an earthquake point of view that its dumb to build on sand/wetlands.  So, we hardly needed all that money spent on these "expert" studies in the first place.... especially when there are so many other more important things councils could do with our money (such as adequate sewerage treatment).  And besides, the more severe weather events we're experiencing mean floods and landslides are going to get alot more houses in the future than the sea is likely to do.

I could go on, but you'll get my drift.  Time to stop the money-go-round on this narrow issue.  We have much bigger fish to fry than how much carbon we might sequester here in little 'ol NZ.

Kate,
Thanks for your posts. I think science should be open to all, as you'll see in what follows. I do happen to be a physicist though, so I have a little head start over some. I am rather passionate over keeping science good, and stopping it from being corrupted.

==================

Professor Harold 'Hal' Lewis quoted on Radio New Zealand National

It was interesting to hear Jim Mora read, as the "quote of the day" part of the Professor Harold 'Hal' Lewis resignation letter out on Radio New Zealand National near the start of this:

4.06 The Panel
Bernard Hickey and Islay Macleod.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons
At 8:30:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/aft/2010/10/12/the_panel_pre-sh…

It appears that I am not the only one who thinks this event is significant.

What those people who like to throw the "denier" bomb around, fail to understand is this.
There are two issues.

The first is whether man-made CO2 is significantly affecting the global climate.
From my research, which is documented and significant, (see here http://www.neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/2421 for 965 posts on this, but also this area http://www.neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/forum/43 for much more), I am swayed to the view that man-made CO2 is not affecting the climate significantly. That there is too much uncertainty over many issues for any conclusion to be drawn. Certainly the science is not settled. Far from it.
I am not a "denier" of anything. I have a view, which I am willing to change if given good reliable trustworthy reasons to change it. I accept that it is quite likely that man-made CO2 does affect the global climate, but not significantly. I have seen no good reliable reasons to believe there is a significant effect, and no sound theory to explain why it should. On the contrary, there are interesting and reasonable theories to suggest other explanations for changes in climate, ideas which make a lot more sense than CO2.

The second, and IMO far more important issue, is whether science is being corrupted. And that is why I think Hal's resignation letter is so significant. It is a complaint that has been made before by many scientists.

It was warned about by Eisenhower thus:

Quote:
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Endquote

which explains why Hal wrote this:

Quote:
a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago

Science can be corrupted in a number of ways, none of which involve a conspiracy:

1. Funding can be selective, biasing research towards a particular view. In this case, funding for climate change related research is available, but funding for research to investigate possible flaws in the current "consensus" is not available. It becomes a matter of career preservation to conform. Cherry picking research is as bad as cherry picking data.

2. In order to minimise the publication of erroneous/misleading research/results, papers are expected to be peer reviewed. There is a hurdle placed to publishing peer reviewed papers for good reason. To be avoided at all cost is future scientific work to be based on falsehoods.
But, the peer review process acts as a filter, as it should, but the make-up of that filter has to be unbiased, truthful, and open.
When those who perform peer reviews in a particular field filter based on their own prejudices and aims, the peer review process becomes a filter to work critical of that "elite" group. It becomes difficult or impossible to publish critical papers, and allows those who support the current theory to make the false claim that the lack of critical peer reviewed papers "proves" that the theory is correct, and to reject any paper exposing flaws in the current theory.

Thirdly, the "elite" group can become gatekeepers of the raw data and methods used by them, thus making it all but impossible for other scientists to look for flaws. This is what science is supposed to be about, and without that checking system, how can we have any faith in it? Again, this is a complaint heard many times from many scientists in the field of climate research.

Fourthly is the idea that only scientists who work directly within the "elite" group have the knowledge to understand the subject, and that all others should be ignored. Science should be open to all, for once any scientists put themselves above everyone else and refuse to be subjected to examination, we can no longer have faith in them. Many a good piece of science has come from unexpected places, and many an error has been revealed in the field of AGW by those outside the "elite" group.

These corrupting influences on science have been cited by a number of scientists.
Since the Climategate scandal, in which the inner workings of the "elite" group of climate scientists was revealed, there have been calls for more transparency.
If there is nothing to hide, if the data is sound, if the adjustments to the data were sound, if the theory is sound, there is nothing to lose by increasing transparency.
If however the data is badly managed, if it has been cherry-picked, if it has been adjusted to suit the theory, and if the theory itself is flawed, then transparency will expose those failings, as it should.

Do I deny the possibility of AGW? No.

Do you deny the possibility that science has been corrupted?
 

hehehe

Pulls chair up.  Zaps popcorn in microwave.  Waiting to see whether Powderdownkiwi will respond....

I am a  chemistry graduate and just recently took an interest in global warming.    I was very surprised to see that

1. Southern hemisphere sea ice extent has been slowly growing for the last 30 years

2. Northern hemisphere ice extent was forcast in 1959 by leading scientists to be entirely gone by 2000.   And us oldies remember they were saying we were going back into an ice age in the 1970s.   

3.. There is no current satellite instrumentation capable of measuring the entire Infra red spectrum to observe the various green house gas influences and the last instrument capable of any measurement of the far infra red was up there in 1974.     If you ever see a picture showing the influence of C02 as shown by satellite it will be from the 1970's and it will be an unusual picture where almost no water vapour is present since water majorly masks C02.     And in reality a typical picture of the spectra is so chaotic to the point it can reveal very little.

4. We dont even fully know the IR characteristics of water vapour in the atmosphere where water vapour and water are overwhelmingly the most massive factors influencing the green house effect.

5. A green house is in fact kept warm because it traps the air that is heated inside the greenhouse rather than because it does not radiate long wave radiation to cold space.

6. The C02 impact is sufficiently low that on a warm dry night in arizona you can freeze water by radiation to outerspace when the air near the roof is at 12C and such methods were used by the ancients to make ice thousands of years ago in places like Persia. 

The fact is the ability of our world to radiate heat to outerspace when there is little water in the atmosphere is huge and the influence of water is amost entirely absent in any popular literature on global warming where water is overwhelming the main green house gas. 

And curiously there is almost no science at all on the impact of C02 to retain the earths heat with the kinds of experiments which most physics and chemistry graduates would be familiar.  Instead there is a lot of talk of computer models where C02 gets 30% or whatever of influence and picture are shown of the IR window from space using those old satellite pictures where water was more or less absent.

What is more it is likely the earth is warming anyway from the last ice age or last cooling phase.

But as can be seen by the NZ temperature record as recorded by people for 150 years or so,  NZ has more or less zero warming in that period at a tiny 0.06C increase. 

Something just does not add up whatever the facts are.     And importantly if people like me actually say this sort of thing publicly, then rather than a discussion of the issues there tends to be a focus on my character and my motivations.

I was very interested to read an article in Nature a week or two back that reported that the amount of visible light hitting the earth's surface has increased over the last several years despite a reduction in the Sun's overall activity.  This may have caused as much warming as CO2 over the last three years according to the by-line. Among other things the research findings highlighted that our understanding of the sun’s effects on global warming is extremely poor and probably requires major revision.

I think we should start taxing sunlight. Hey, the Middle East is bathed in the stuff and it’s really hot there! Let's tax them as a major cause of global warming - we can get some of our petrol money back!

Here's a link to the article:- http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101006/full/news.2010.519.html

This is a generally interesting (and mostly civil) debate that we haven't had on this site recently.

I appreciate people's attempts to keep it civil.

A quick reminder to people to not be abusive and to back up their arguments with links to other sources/authorities.

cheers

Bernard

Andrew in Finland,
You said:
"5. A green house is in fact kept warm because it traps the air that is heated inside the greenhouse rather than because it does not radiate long wave radiation to cold space."

I explained that to someone on propertytalk and was told I was an idiot!

Which just showed me who the idiot was LOL.

Is Radio New Zealand National going to follow the BBC example and ensure balance on climate change?
16th Oct 2010
by Steve Netwriter
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/3694

I suspect those on the "alarmist" side will find the interview with Tim Flannery mentioned in my article interesting. Those on the "skeptical" side may find my article's question of interest.

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/203.pdf

 But I’m not interested in endless debates about the “If’s or “No’s”. Severe weather events increased and costs billions more – a heavy financial burden, especially for the next generation in case the trend isn’t reversing. Economies (food production) worldwide will suffer.

Steven, good to see you talking about the consequences of severe weather events and not about the cause. If it is climate change or not and men made or not needs to be proven. I personally think it will end up similar to the tobacco story - but I'm not wasting my time debating.

Deniers watch also - to the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

andyh,

          I took the trouble to go and look at the link where you claim Hal had trouble keeping up with papers in his own field 25 or so years ago.

For context

====== cut from link ===

Your papers — correspondence, notes, manuscripts, things of that sort — what's the status of those? That's another thing we're interested in.

Yes. I really don't have them, you know. I've long since either lost in moving or discarded everything that I had. So I have no papers around from JASON, if that's what you mean.

No, generally — both JASON and generally speaking.

There are lots of things, but they're scattered in a complicated way. Generally speaking, I throw things away after a few years, so the only things I have are the things that have accumulated over the last few years and are relevant to the things I'm actually doing these days.

That's another thing that the Center is strongly involved in — just saving papers for historical purposes.

Yes, I understand. But I have enough trouble keeping up with current papers.

====== end cut from link ===

When read in context I believe it does no harm to Steve's case.

In many areas the amount of research being published has exploded in volume. My reading of that link is that is all Hal was referring to. Not that he was getting doddery.

I'm afraid that in my opinion it doesn't support your case.  And as that doesn't support your case the issue with Hal not having published a paper on climate change loses much of its punch.

Amen !

As I pointed out earlier increase severe weather events are a fact. It is up to us to work around that and find solutions to minimise the damages. The video is a good example how.

 The video is so convincing, I was almost certain that someone out there (a kifi) find something which isn’t that important.

quote:

by Kunst | 12 Oct 10, 8:33pm

I think over a number of years the world is experiencing more severe weather events. If they are caused by climate changes or not isn’t relevant, before proven or not - but a fact to be accepted.

unquote

Understandable confusion over whether the claimed AGW causes more severe weather events
http://neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/3710

quote:

When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

unquote

Read my article for more details.

Earlier on this issue I provided this link below, which tells a different story. Wherever I read, even scientific reports it is statement against statement.

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/203.pdf

 For me personally this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ  is the best available solution until we know more about  weather patterns. Unfortunately I cannot see many taking actions. This has the potential to ruin not only agriculture businesses, but communities, even nations.

So you don't accept the IPCC 2007 report and the contributors?

quote:

Pielke et al. (2000)
3
 estimate for the year 2050 that economic
losses for natural weather disasters –  tropical cyclones, floods, water re-
sources – would grow dramatically, even in the absence of climate change
(human-made or natural, or both). The rise in economic losses occurs pri-
marily from population growth plus societal and economic development.  
Compared to the estimated losses for human-made climate change (e.g.,
projected rise in flooding, extreme precipitation, tropical cyclones, etc.) so-
cietal trends would be 22 to 60 times more potent in creating economic
losses than the projected rise in losses from greenhouse-gas weather disas-
ter losses. That is to say, committing to mitigation of a greenhouse-
enhanced atmosphere will be of little consequence in reducing the enor-
mous weather losses that would come from societal trends.

unquote

and

quote

Summary
 
In an atmosphere theoretically warmed by the air’s increased con-
centration of greenhouse gases, climate-related catastrophe losses would be
little influenced by policies like the Kyoto Protocol, for three reasons.  
 
First, there is no reliable evidence for increased severity or fre-
quency of storms, droughts, or floods  that can be related to the air’s in-
creased greenhouse gas content. The computer simulations do not give re-
liable forecasts on future extreme weather. Reconstruction of past climate
change links the coldest times of the last millennium with periods of more
frequent or more severe events, or both.
 
Second, in terms preventing predicted catastrophe losses, socio-
economic trends, not the forecast human-made climate effects from a rise
in the air’s greenhouse gas content, would by far dominate the loss costs.  
 
The UNEP report admits the importance of the socio-economic fac-
tors in catastrophic losses, but fails to recognize how small a component
the forecast human-made climate effects would play: “Although the steady
increase in economic and insured losses is more a function of the concen-
tration of economic development in vulnerable regions than climate change
per se, it is clear that climate change will exacerbate these loss trends.”

unquote

If my quick reading of that is correct, they are saying CO2 is not a factor, but a growing population and building in "stupid places" is.

As long as scientific statements are against others, it isn’t a matter of acceptance it is a matter of believe. I’m therefore not fanatical about this issue. I personally think worldwide – yes we are cleaning up all the time, costing economies Billions. Why can't we do better is my question ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11551943