Today's Top 10 is a guest post from Oliver Hartwich, the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative.
As always, we welcome your additions in the comment stream below or via email to david.chaston@interest.co.nz.
And if you're interested in contributing the occasional Top 10 yourself, contact gareth.vaughan@interest.co.nz.
See all previous Top 10s here.
1. Life is a beauty contest
The Atlantic reports on research by economists Joseph T. Halford and Hung-Chia Hsu at the University of Wisconsin.
In a new working paper they revealed that an executive’s physical appearance has a direct effect on his or her salary.
Investors often take shortcuts in assessing a CEO’s performance, and there is no shorter shortcut than beauty.
Beauty is no longer in the eyes of the beholder but in the eyes of the shareholder:
The problem is that the right look is often valued for the wrong reasons. “Mature-looking” CEOs are presumed to be more competent, according to another study by John R. Graham, Campbell R. Harvey and Manju Puri. But while beautiful faces might actually be more valuable for their companies, there’s nothing special about wizened heads or the brains inside them. “Psychology research shows that baby-faced-looking people often possess qualities opposite to those projected by their facial traits,” the researchers write (and this author cheers the finding). Mature-looking CEOs aren’t any better at their jobs. They’re just better at looking like they’re better.
2. The difference between houses and chickens
The Economist has found an ingenious way of showing how absurdly overpriced British property has become.
If, since 1971, the price of groceries had risen as steeply as the cost of housing, a chicken would cost £51 (NZ$99).
The culprit behind this rampant price inflation in property is an artificial restriction of land supply.
If the rest of The Economist’s article sounds familiar to New Zealand readers, it is because our own planning system was not only derived from the British model, but also suffers from many of the same flaws.
This is all the result of deliberate policymaking. Since the 1940s house-building in Britain has been regulated by a system designed to prevent urban sprawl, something it has achieved spectacularly well. It is almost impossible to construct any new building anywhere without permission from the local council. In the places where people most want to live—suburbs at the edge of big cities—councils tend not to give it. … The green belts that stop development around big cities should go, or at least be greatly weakened. They increase journey times without adding to human happiness. London’s, in particular, mostly protects scrubby agricultural fields and pony paddocks. Parts would be prettier with housing on.
3. House & Garden
If the housing shortage is such a big issue, as previous story explains, then at least there is a simple solution to it: Build houses.
Unfortunately, there is significant resistance to the notion. Not least because when it comes to mass home building people associate bland, monotonous developments with it.
It needn’t be this way, and this week the London Daily Telegraph revealed how the British government is considering to revive the Garden City movement.
Building beautiful green cities with gardens that will make housing more affordable.
Of course the government’s initiative will be met with fierce resistance by the NIMBY (Not-In-My-Backyard) and the BANANA (Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anyone) lobby.
Unsurprisingly, the government is already getting cold feet.
A secret Whitehall report recommending that two new cities are built in southern England to combat the housing shortage is being suppressed by David Cameron, The Telegraph can disclose. The document was drawn up after the Prime Minister gave a speech supporting the idea nearly two years ago. It was described this week by Nick Clegg, his deputy, as a “prospectus” for future developments. But it has languished in a Whitehall office since it was written, with officials said to be in a “panic” about whether it should be made public.
4. If China stalls, Australia might be forced to reform
Australia has enjoyed a good ride over the past 22 years of uninterrupted economic growth – not least due to Chinese demand for Australian commodities.
But as Professor Ross Garnaut explains in an article published in Business Spectator, the good days will come to an end and Australia will have to do what it has neglected in its times of plenty: reform.
A new economic reform era is required. That requires social cohesion around acceptance that all elements in society must share in restraint as well as commitment to productivity-raising structural change. Achievement of this outcome is blocked by changes in the political culture of Australia since the reform era. Now, uninhibited pursuit of private interests has become much more important in policy discussion and influence.
The new Australian government will succeed in building the political culture that is necessary to deal with the problem only if it is effective in persuading the community of the importance of reform, and in confronting the Great Australian Complacency of the early 21st Century. This will be hard, as the government will have to change the 21st century tendency for private interests to outweigh the public interest in policy discussion and choice. Harder still, the new government will have to disappoint its strongest supporters along the way to leading Australia into a new reform era.
5. New Zealand is booming ...
While Australia is struggling to get its mojo back, New Zealand is enjoying its best business climate for twenty years.
The NZIER’s most recent business survey underlines a trend that other surveys such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index have also identified: New Zealand executives are feeling more and more positive about their country – especially when compared to conditions across the ditch.
If this business sentiment translates into economic growth, wages and job increases it should be hard for the government to lose the 2014 election.
Economic activity accelerated in the second half of 2013, according to the NZIER’s December 2013 quarter Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion (QSBO). “Businesses are the most optimistic they’ve been for 20 years and economic activity is strong. Optimism and activity are being realised into better profits, higher investment and more jobs,” said Shamubeel Eaqub, Principal Economist at NZIER. In December 2013, businesses were the most optimistic since June 1994 (52% from 33% in September). Domestic trading activity strengthened to the highest level since March 2005 (net 15% of firms reported increasing activity, up from 12% in September). Reported hiring rose to the highest level since December 2006, and firms expect to hire more staff at the start of 2014. This suggests an improved outlook for jobs and wages.
6. ... but not everyone is celebrating
The boom of the New Zealand economy is obviously great news for the businesses, consumers, jobseekers and the government, but not everybody wants to join in the celebration.
Certainly not the International Committee of the Fourth International, publishers of the World Socialist Web Site. Its commentator spots weaknesses, pitfalls and dangers everywhere in the kiwi economy, not least thanks to uncertainty in China. Well, if the Chinese had not deviated from tried and tested Marxist-Leninist policies their future would indeed be more predictable.
While most financial commentators predict an ongoing boom this year, this places heavy bets on the stability of the Chinese and world economy. Economist Brian Gaynor wrote in the New Zealand Herald on December 14: “The present export- and investment-led upturn could be maintained for several years—as long as dairy prices don’t collapse, the Chinese economy doesn’t go into an unexpected downturn and there isn’t an external shock like that of the mid-1970s,” when oil prices increased nearly four-fold.
7. Europe's debt crisis has barely started
Not long ago, most economic commentators agreed that the euro crisis was the biggest threat to the world economy.
The European Central Bank’s threat to print its way out of trouble may have calmed nerves for now, but as The Daily Telegraph’s Jeremy Warner reminds his readers, the underlying debt crisis has not been tackled. If anything, it now looks virtually insolvable.
[T]he eurozone still clings to the pretence that debt sustainability can be achieved through a mixture of austerity, forbearance and structural reform. This defies not just common sense, but virtually all historical precedent. […] One way or another, Europe will eventually have to provide a mechanism for burden-sharing. Whether it is through comprehensive debt mutualisation, break-up of the eurozone, restructuring or simply European Central Bank monetisation is not yet certain. What can be said is that the longer the delay, and the worse the deflationary pressures get in the meantime, the more painful, divisive and recriminatory the eventual solution will be.
8. A duty of care ?
As lawyers have known since Donoghue v Stevenson, producers should not add dead snails to bottles of ginger beer or they can be liable for neglecting their duty of care.
As the Huffington Post reports, an American pimp serving a 100-year jail sentence is trying to add his own extended definition to tort law by suing Nike for US$ 100 million. Why? Because Nike failed to inform him that their shoes could be used as a weapon. When he repeatedly kicked a victim he had no idea that his Nike shoes could inflict any harm.
It is unlikely the plaintiff will succeed but what a mess the US legal system has become when anyone seriously files claims like this.
Sirgiorgiro Clardy was convicted of repeatedly stomping a man’s face after he didn’t pay one of Clardy’s prostitutes in 2012. He’s serving a 100-year sentence for second-degree assault and other crimes including beating one of his prostitutes so badly she was bleeding from her ears.
This time, Clardy blames Nike.
“Under product liability there is a certain standard of care that is required to be upheld by potentially dangerous product ...” Clardy wrote in his complaint. “Do (sic) to the fact that these defendants named in this Tort claim failed to warn of risk or to provide an adequate warning or instruction it has caused personal injury in the likes of mental suffering.”
9. Lessons from Iceland
One of the worst hit countries of the Global Financial Crisis was Iceland. As it turns out, it is also the country with the most impressive turnaround as German newsmagazine Der Spiegel notes.
Part of the story can also be summed up like this: While most countries decided to punish the people and bail out the banks, in Iceland it was done exactly the other way around.
Iceland’s rapid return to health hinged on a series of measures that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman later referred to as “doing an Iceland.” Krugman, an admirer of Iceland’s dramatic comeback, has recommended a similar policy cocktail for other nations in crisis. The rules are as follows: Allow your ailing banks to collapse; devalue your currency if you have one of your own; introduce capital controls; and try to avoid paying back foreign debts.
That may sound like an extremely self-serving recipe -- and it was. Whereas billions of public money was pumped into the banking system in Ireland so that financial institutions could pay back their creditors, Icelanders voted against this route in two separate referenda. They couldn’t see why they should pay for the greed of foreign investors who followed the Siren song of high interest rates to the island nation.
10. And finally: Advice on how to get out of boring meetings
It is the book the business world has been waiting for. Jon Petz’s Boring Meetings Suck may not be quite fresh off the press (it was first released in the US in 2011), but the Sydney Morning Herald only just wrote it up for its readers.
Everybody knows how tedious a sequence of pointless meetings can be.
Finally, there is a wealth of advice on how to avoid this office torture – or at least on how to get out of meetings quickly and without hurting anyone’s feelings.
Bliss!
One device he advocates is the "first in, first out" approach. He says when you receive an agenda for a meeting, respond by saying you'll be there but also ask to meet with the manager or host a few minutes before the meeting starts to share your insights as you won't be able to stay for the whole meeting.
Petz says meeting the manager beforehand is key, as you will still be viewed as a committed team member. “And because you're early, this gives you the opportunity to grab a seat by the door for your discreet exit a few minutes into the meeting,” he says. “You walk out, with nothing more than a thankful nod needed.”
106 Comments
#8 is like the McDonald's coffee temperature court case- it actually makes sense if you know the full details. In this case the pimp has been convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon (so a more serious charge with longer jail time), he is taking NIke to court to lose, establishing evidence that shoes are not dangerous weapons in order to aid his appeal against his sentence.
The global crisis. Eurozone, Iceland, Ireland and so on can be blamed on this
Bitcoin’s are just a mirror image of our present day (Fiat) money.
Consider our present day (Fiat) money
It costs $1 to buy 1x
As more and more $1 are put into the economy there are more to spend, and so prices rise.
Over time it will cost $2 to buy 1x, then $3 to buy 1x and so on
The $1 remains the same but it becomes worth less and less and so we need more and more to buy the 1x. This is Inflation.
Now look in the mirror at our money's image and we see a Bitcoin
It costs 1 Bitcoin to buy 1x
As no more Bitcoins are being put into the economy they become more scarce and so prices fall.
Over time it will cost ½ of Bitcoin to buy 1x, then ¼ Bitcoin to buy 1x and so on
The 1 Bitcoin remains the same but it becomes worth more and more and so we need less and less to buy the 1x. This is Deflation.
If you try to save up your $1 bills you are in a constant race trying to stay ahead of their ever decreasing value.
If you try to save up your Bitcoins you have to do nothing because they will increase on their own..
We see that the Bitcoin and the $1 are a Mirror image of each other. Moving in opposite directions, one inflationary and the other deflationary.
In their present form both the Bitcoin and our present money system are both bad for us, and our economy.
A currency is, or should be, "A medium of exchange", and as such, it should be controlled by the economy that it serves.
Our Fiat money system fails because it is controlled, not by the economy, but by banks
The Bitcoin fails because it is controlled, not by the economy, but by computers.
We need a change, to a currency that can only be controlled by the economy that it serves.
Finding a currency that is controlled by an economy is not easy, but we should try, because it is very important.
The best i have come up with so far is a currency controlled by population. That is $'s per capita. Without a population there is no economy, and, in theory, the bigger the population the bigger the economy.
If we combine our present money and Bitcoins will their negatives cancel each other out?
I have to stop here because this now becomes too big a topic to cover here. Maybe a bank economist or Gareth Morgan, Matt Nolan or the NZIER may have a good article to write on this.
The Bitcoin is not going away and many others are starting up. Sooner or later we are going to have no choice but to have this conversation.
#2 - Yes, indeedy.
The Plannerista and Zonerators have a lotta economic damage to answer for.
The worst aspect is that there are at least three interlocking and mutually reinforcing incentives at play, once the well-intentioned business of zoning is implemented.
1 - The Rural-urban bare land price differential immediately ramps up, as a form of arbitrage (the exploitation of differing prices/policies across a boundary). The Auckland MUL differential is of the order of 10x, according to the Productivity Commish. (See P116 - a direct quote:
"Grimes and Liang (2009) have previously estimated the impact of the Auckland Metropolitan Urban Limit(MUL). Controlling for a wide variety of factors that affect urban and rural land prices, they found that land just within the MUL was valued at approximately ten times the rate of neighbouring land just outside the MUL.")
This manifests as higher land prices to the next buyer, and an (if correcyly structured) tax-free CG to the current landowner. (Who may or may not be related to the Plannerista - there are a lot of juicy UK cases of Planners with their hands in the till, so to speak).
2 - More generally, any action taken by regulatory authorities which increases the cost for a new build (be that in land, services or direct build cost), transmits quickly to the neighbourhood and suburb, then (and only slightly more slowly) to the urban area - a slow-moving financial tsunami or perhaps osmosis is a better biological analogy.
Consider a typical well-intentioned change for Elfin Safety: you may no longer stand on a saw stool or short ladder to reach a celing or high cupboard. These tools are not designed with appropriate safety measures (hand-rails, fall protection). You must use a purpose-designed platform. Sure, the builder says, I'll just buy me a dozen of these (at say a grand each) and charge plus oncosts to the end buyers of the 6 houses I knock together this year. House costs $3K more - cheap at the price to safeguard them downtrodden - well, uplifted, actually - workers. But this $3K and all of its mates (regulations tend to compound...) then, quietly, inflates the asking price for all the neighbours, Then the suburb, Then (and with exceptions, YMMV) the city.
Financial osmosis.
Who benefits? Workers, anyone who works at a percentage rate of raw cost (land agents, architects, council rates etc - a long and lucrative list). Them neighbours - instant and widespread CG. Untaxed, naturally. Banks (doh!) who have a larger figure on all their doco, every step of the way. Insurers, who are another 1%'er.
Who pays? Why, the FHB and new-build buyer (if not a firster). The renter. The buyers of them now-inflated older houses.
Curiously, there's no lobby group associated with these (buyers, renters), of any notable weight. It's a private pain, not very attractive as the basis for wide public exhibition.
3 - Build cost inflation very directly benefits the Plannerista and Zonerati, because (tada!) they work for Councils who are very direct beneficiaries of all of the above. Rates! Inspection fees! Development Contributions! All of which can be used, oddly enough, to increase the size and salary base of - the Planners and Zoners! Who cannot, in a massive Democratic Deficit, be voted out of office. So, and inevitably, they conclude that they are doing Godzone work, and we get - More of the Same!
I Did say, "Mutually Reinforcing".....and Economic Damage.
Now, today's Friday Question.
How could any of this be possibly unwound?
Well, in answer to your question. Reform either takes place incrementally over time or it takes place catastrophically in response to a crisis. In 2008 I was expecting the catastrophic solution as in the early 1990s. National saw fit to try the incremental approach as they knew that it was the only way to get re-elected. As it turned out they got lucky and there was time for gradual reform, largely due to massive response by the US, China, UK, EU, Japan, Australia and uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Problem is, National's "change we can go along with" hasn't even begun to have even the beginning of the slightest little puffle of effect on the house price/mortgage debt monster. So we coast complacently along until the next crisis; with National telling us they have Everything Under Control and Labour telling us They Know What To Do. The next crisis will arise unexpectedly and catch us unprepared. That's the tricky thing about crises, you don't know where or when they will arise.
Re: Problem is, National's "change we can go along with" hasn't even begun to have even the beginning of the slightest little puffle of effect on the house price/mortgage debt monster.
Agreed, it will be interesting in a horror movie kind of way how bad the Demographic housing affordability figures are, when they come out with next week.
9. Icelands rapid return to health - a bit of a myth I believe..
http://www.dailypaul.com/293425/iceland-the-lies-weve-been-told-about-icelands-recovery
Today, the government is spending a back-breaking 17.3% of its tax revenue just to pay interest on the debt.
And this is real interest, too. Iceland's central bank owns very little of the government debt. The rest is owed to foreign creditors... putting the country in an extremely difficult financial position.
At the end of the day, the Icelandic people are responsible for this. They were never bailed out. They were stuck with the bill.
Meanwhile, although unemployment in Iceland is low, wages are even lower. And the weak currency has brought on double-digit inflation.
So while people do have jobs, they can hardly afford anything.
This is most prevalent in the housing market, most of which is underwater. Interest rates have jumped so much that many Icelanders are now on negative amortization schedules, i.e. their mortgage balances are actually increasing with each payment.
Meanwhile, home prices have been falling dramatically.
So each year, mortgage balances are going up, and home values are falling. Hardly the picture of recovery.
With household debt at 108% of GDP the newly elected Icelandicgovernment ran on a platform of financial sector taxes -> debt relief. International financial institutions are not impressed.
But given NZ is more or less in the same zone as the "crushing debt of the Icelandic people" in the above article, it will be interesting to see how how Icelandic experiment goes.
An interesting point of view and typical Austrian/libertarian/gold bug...
So the Q is do you want to look at the data and more mainstream view points, or a web site with an axe to grind cherry picking bits to suit its agenda.
Lets take Ireland as an austerity example....I'd suggest that looks even worse...
Up to you.
regards
Couldn't be anything to do with money then could it?
Here's one for you
http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-reviews-haribos-sugarless-gummy…
Re Waymads Friday's Question.
How could any of this be possibly unwound?
Reform needn't be too dramatic. Transfer funding and reponsibility for transport to Local government. PAYE tax is split between central and local government to pay for this. Every PAYE taxpayer declares which LG they are resident in and the first say 3c in PAYE goes to that Council and the remainder goes to Wellington.
This does two things, it gives local government the means to open up new affordable housing areas. Secondly it gives an incentive to LG to provide these affordable areas because that will attract more workers and businesses and therefor increase LG budgets.
So the dynamic changes from LG wanting to screw developers for every last cent to increase there budgets which has the effect of discouraging new residents. To LG wanting to work with developers to attract new residents.
Some Councils might find it difficult to change their culture but enough would change that their would be a lot of competition to provide affordable housing and land for new businesses.
If you added that following Audit Office approval Kiwisaver could buy LG bonds. Then a partly public debt funded housing construction boom would replace a fully private debt funded housing price boom.
Great idea Brendon. Is that similar to the Swiss model? Is it that central and local government types just do not understand the idea of a customer as someone who freely chooses to use your goods or services and pay the going rate for them? They seem to think you must have a monopoly and force or con people into paying you. The local councils do not seem to compete for business to move from one region to another, neither does the government seem to realise that we need to attract businesses from Aussie if we want to have modern jobs for our young people.
Thanks Roger. The Swiss are the gold standard in this process of competitive local governments -they call it subsidiarity. But really many countries throughout Europe have strong competitive local government even though they have quite different political institutions and histories.
I like Denmark because it has many similiarities to us. It is a small country of 5.5 million. It is a constitutional monarchy. 50% of its exports used to be food exports to the UK and still food is big business, bigger than NZ. But Denmark has many innovative food companies not one monopoly. 30% of taxes in Denmark go to local government. I am not sure what there housing affordability is currently, but historically affordable housing was part of the reason for Lego's continued success.
Denmark has many other successful companies -Bang & Olufsen, VELUX, ECCO, etc showing that competition is something they genuinely believe in.
A great time to be Texan. Now the 9th largest oil producer in the world.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2014/01/09/oil-gas-boom-2014-…
Texas is now doing on its own what some pundits believed the entire US would be producing by now. http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/
O na national basis it has seen the largest annual increase in oil production since records began. The US petroleum trade deficit has reduced from $359 billion during January 2012 to $182 billion during November 2013 and is on track to go to zero in a couple of years.
On a related topic http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/science/earth/un-says-lag-in-confronting-climate-woes-will-be-costly.html?hp&_r=0
Lets assume this new boom in Texas will last for a decent period of time (unlikely given depletion rates). The real issue is apporximately 3/4 of all world oil reserves will have to stay in the ground to keep global climate change to 2c. So while people may delude themselves into thinking we won't run out of oil the fact is it dosn't matter we can't burn much more anyway.
We live in interesting times...
Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts, Met Office, 2011.
'Most climate scientists* do not subscribe to the 2 degrees "Dangerous Climate Change" meme (I know I don't). "Dangerous" is a value judgement, and the relationship between any particular level of global mean temperature rise and impacts on society are fraught with uncertainties, including the nature of regional climate responses and the vulnerability/resilience of society. The most solid evidence for something with serious global implications that might happen at 2 degrees is the possible passing of a key threshold for the Greenland ice sheet, but even then that's the lower limit and also would probably take centuries to take full effect. Other impacts like drought and crop failures are massively uncertain, and while severe negative impacts may occur in some regions, positive impacts may occur in others. While the major negative impacts can't be ruled out, their certainty is wildly over-stated. While really bad things may happen at 2 degrees, they may very well not happen either.'
Given global temperatures have flat lined in the past 17 years, and the benficial effect of enhanced CO2 levels on plant growth, I think we can all calm down.
Even the IPPC, whose very existence relies in alarm, are backing off.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-for-agw/
maaaate .. you have no idea .. very easy for you to sit and pontificate on global climate change and quote nonsensical global averages from the bottom end of the world
I'm no climate scientist .. I never get involved in this debate .. but .. forget global warming .. try local warming
I've been in Melbourne for a few years .. we used to get 4 days a year, in total, over 40 degrees celsius, spread over 2 months .. figured I could tolerate 4 days a year .. then it got to 5 .. then 6 .. the last 3 years we have had heat waves of over 40 degrees for 4 days in a row .. over the past 3 years we have had 12 and 13 days a year .. today was the end of the latest heat wave .. the first time it has been 4 days in a row of over 41 degrees since 1908 .. today was 44 .. overnight low was 35 degrees .. black Friday was 46 degrees .. 2013 was the hottest on year record in australia .. 2012 was the hottest year on record in new zealand
I've had it .. It's so bad I'm getting out
Yep sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. No doubt you think vacinations cause autism and commercial airlines spray chemicals on us to keep us docile.
I can understand people not agreeing with me on contentious issue but global climate change isn't . Anyone who tries do deny climate change is a total fool and worthy of contempt. While I find your comments in general pretty lacklustre resorting to climate change denial is just boring.
I saw yesterday complaints about the quality of debate from the doomer brigade well we have to deal with plenty of stupid too.
C'mon, you bought up climate change not me. What is so contentious about a couple quotes from climate scientists. Curry and Betts are pretty reasonable people. Your suggestion to leave 3/4 of the worlds oil in the ground is more of the anti vaccination/chemtrails bent.
Climate change yep, runaway climate change and we're all doomed - the empirical evidence just isn't there. Look at the difference between the models and empirical data on Curry's website link above. Look at the satellite data.
Dr Tim Morgan, former head of research at Tullett Prebon has been working on a database of EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). Interesting implications (this was too interesting for me not to post sorry!).
"Overall EROEI has been declining since the 1960s, and has fallen from 55.7:1 in 1980, and 37.2:1 in 1990, to 24.3:1 in 2000 and 13.6:1 in 2013. Reflecting this, the trend in the Energy Cost Of Energy (ECOE) has risen to 6.8% in 2013, from 1.8% in 1980, 2.6% in 1990 and 3.9% in 2000. Looking ahead, the model projects EROEIs of 10:1 in 2020 and 7.9:1 in 2025, equivalent, respectively, to ECOEs of 9.1% and 11.2%.
Globally, and expressed in constant (2012) dollars, this means that the real economy will decline pretty gradually, falling by 2.9% between 2013 and 2020, and by a further 5.9% between 2020 and 2025, leaving the real economy some 8.5% smaller in 2025 than it was in 2013. Unfortunately, it’s going to feel rather worse than that, for two main reasons. First, of course, we’ve long become accustomed to growth. Second, the financial economy already exceeds the real one, because we are continuing to create “excess claims” at the rate of close to US$5 trillion annually. The global real economy of 2020 is projected to be almost 9% smaller than last year’s financial economy – and that’s going to hurt.
The system identifies two critical thresholds. The lower of the two is the “viability threshold”, at an EROEI of about 6:1. At this point, energy costs absorb over 14% of economic output, making the economy barely viable at all. Well before that point is reached, however, there is the “investment threshold”, set at an EROEI of 14:1. At this point, the cost of energy is 6.7%. Whilst the remaining 93% of output may suffice to keep the economy going, it is insufficient to fund net investment in new capital assets.
What would an economy look like at levels of EROEI below the 14:1 “investment threshold”? Well, first and foremost, it would not be able to afford net capital investment. What this really means is that the economy’s consumption needs would not leave any scope for capital formation, which, in everyday parlance, means the economy could not afford to save. So an economy in sub-threshold condition would have to have negative real interest rates, offering a negative return on savings, and deterring any rational person from saving – every available cent would be needed for day-to-day consumption, and it is probable that the sub-threshold economy would be borrowing extensively as well. At the same time, negative real interest rates would be imperative simply to keep the economy going, and to put off the evil day when “value destruction” – the destruction of “excess claims” – kicks in.
Does this seem familiar? It should, because it describes a swathe of Western economies right now."
Here is a link to his blog:
http://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
Also, in case you haven't read it here was a publication by Tullett Prebon which is a great summary linking energy to the economy - it pretty much nails the reality of things.
The Perfect Storm - Energy, finance and the end of growth
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
Great one thank you Plutocracy. If you recall I have used the term "Peak EROI" on these forums to explain the inflection point in 61 where the world population growth turned negative. To me it seems a logical conclusion but it is good to see some an empirical method to back this up.
Yes, this sounds familiar. Trouble is the logic is flawed. One unspoken assumption is there is nothing we can do about it - that there will be no adaptive response.
Are Western economies lean, efficient and productive or are they fat, lazy, complacent and stagnant? They are mainly the latter in my opinion. We have been busy building empires (EU, US) and erecting bureaucratic barriers to change. The bureaucratic overhead is strangling the life out of our societies and this is effectively what he is measuring in terms of declining productivity.
Roger there is a fixed calorific requirement for every person every day. The energy surplus provided by oil has meant that the total calorific food output of the planet has increased without a corresponding amound of input from human labour. We have a surplus of human labour, that is your fat, complacent and stagnant element, or unearning non-productive types. ie: most of us in the western world. If the oil isn't available to provide the labour then it decreases the calorific output of the planet, that can't be replaced by the surplus human labour laying idle as its available input is less.
We will for a time survive on less calories per person, a qualitative change, but eventually there will have to be a quantitative change.
LGA 2002 s41A doesn't give a mayor powers to unilaterally allocate themselves money or employ staff. Also s42(g) and s42(h) explicitly place responsibility for employing staff on the CE.
Jane Parfitt would not normally allow her mayor to act illegally so I am going to suggest this could be largely a reallocation of existing staff. If they are new positions on top of existing staff then it does look like lunacy.
Sorry Christchurch, I really am sorry.
Hugh, You must be the only sane person left, or is this driving you totally do-lally too.
Because this just confirms my deepest suspicions.
The nuts have taken over the nuthouse.
Does madam want to be named as a Dame, too....with all this pantomine.
Was once a knight, not enough for dear old Christchuch??.
Are they kingdom building, down there at the Council, or what.??.
Did her meeting Bloomberg go to her head, or did he slip her something, to pay for all this largesse. I know he has deep pockets, more so than most down your way.
It does seem a bit early on in the piece to get ideas above her station.
What the hell does she need all this advice about and if she is un-coordinated, she might want to see a specialist.
No wonder Christchurch rebuild is slow, they spent all on spin and flim flam and idiots playing pass the parcel and big noting.
Seems "Talk", is not cheap in Christchurch.
Is there any hope .....for any wise council.
I could go on, but words fail me...........but not her.
Apparently.
etc, etc, etc.
I have a conspiracy theory.
They intend to bankrupt us all, to enable us all to be sold into slavery.
Being over-rated is not enough, they want serfs to bend to their every whim and return to feudal ways.
Empire building over my dead body, I say.
The Empire should strike back.
Maybe a rates strike, might wake em up a bit.
But these people are endemic, they are the problem. They have been for far too long.
The whole world has gone nuts, from the top down. But nothing changes.
And though I act insane intentionally, they drove me to it, they just prove it to me daily, not me, not you, but them overheads that are the eternal problem.
And it is apathy, all around the World that allows this stupidity to happen.
Is there something in the water. What are they smoking these days.
Or are people too scared to open their mouths, open their minds.
We need change, not this fiasco, perpetuated today, every day.
I have a theory, I am not sure if it is a conspiratory or not.
I think when the RMA Act was imposed on local government and certainly when the 2002 Local Government ACT and various other Central government requirements such as clean water standards etc were imposed that Wellington knew that LG lacked the ability to pay for new infrastructure so they gave LG the power to make developers pay.
Developers pay by either having to build the infrastructure and gift it to Council, or by being charged developer and financial contributions. I think the various Local government 10 year plans, housing accords etc are just the starting point for negotiations between developers and the Council. That councils are not really interested in dealing with small developers, the Zany Zanes, but will partner up with the big players who can implement significant portions of the LG plans. The big developers put up with this extortiant behaviour because Councils give them a local monopoly on new residential land sales through the zoning system.
To blame local government for being useless or because they don't provide the amenities that residents think they should doesn't change anything. Residents have little control over how their local rural or urban environment will be configured. At best it is a honest negotiation between Council planning departments and big developers and at worst it is crony capitalism. Local residents and democracy is not really part of the process. Elected councillors could be replaced by appointed bureacrats and the system woudn't change.
Maybe 2000 people in NZ understand this process and most of them have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
The sword blows that will break the Gordian knot of housing affordability is imposing some limit on how much Councils can extort from Developers (say paying only for amenities that are physically within the new residential area), allowing the small developers, the ZZs, to compete against the big ones and funding reform for Local government, preferably in a way that local residents can gain some democratic control over any new infrastructure that is provided.
Don't need conspiracies when you have cockups and small country politics.
Thre are some big picture items to bear in mind on this topic:
1. In the mid-80's central government lowered income tax rates and balanced the books partially by shifiting costs to local government and ultimately to consumers.
2. The mid-80's also saw the deregulation of transport. We have ended up mothballing lots of the investment we had made in ports and rail infrastructure and scrambling to improve our increasingly inadequate roading infrastructure
3. Steadily more onerous regulation around public health, environmental protection, health and safety that has added costs often as much for ideological reasons as much as achieving valuable outcomes.
4. Since 2000 council input costs (mainly construction prices) have risen 50% faster than consumer prices.
There has been no effort by either central or local government to really get to grips on the who pays for what and why so we continue to lurch from one mini-crisis to another imposing ever more ludicrous knee-jerk solutions.
I don't really see any Alexandrine sword being available to cut through the Gordian knot as long as the weird co-dependency between central and local government continues. Central government needs someone to kick and abuse; local government will put up with that abuse as long as they remain well-fed and have have a roof over their heads.
Kumbel that is why the practices of our local and central government politicians need to be exposed in forums such as these. Politicians like Key want adulation, Brownlee wants to control expectations, Parker wanted status. When we give them contempt because we can see the pathetic little games they are playing can they cope with that... In the end they are our servants.
Brendon. Your theroy runs true. But i don't think it's a conspiracy, because these people are not smart enough. It was more like giving a twelve gauge shotgun to a five year old, and expecting good things to happen.
A number of really stupid things we have in NZ can be traced back to Sir Geoffrey Palmer. RMA. Treaty Principles etc. The capacity of the man to create chaos that has continued down through the decades has been just astounding.
Well my last theory at least stirred up some debate.
Because I have another...!!
And here it is.
When one party has power and the other parties have the minorities and you split the vote and split the power, all power prices will rise accordingly as more and more idiots put more and more emphasis on buying work.
Also, buying votes and dumbing down the electorate, causing less intelligent people to ever vote for anything sane and forward thinking, ever again. You are all out numbered.
Cos absolute Power Corrupts and you will pay.!
Some will buy those expensive power shares at the behest of insane people, to get an irrational belief in that Government of any ilk, knows best, knows better than any sane rational person, could possibly image. Some will buy a gas guzzler to prove a point and the Government will tax it into poverty, incluing any small diesel to actually save us from ourselves.
This thesis is proven by us all wasting our time, mine especially, our energy and our intelligence in debating anything rational, thought provoking and only getting a few sane comments, on this subject of Local Government and the failure to perform, at best stupid, at worst, actually criminal.
(I commend the discussion, but remember my recommendations are not always as rational, unlike a like a politicians, who can obfuscate,far more than I and lie bareface to your face, about what they cannot remember, not just on paper, or the screen as you are reading today).
And in todays environment I think I have proved my own previous thesis correct as well as this last one. Some people will believe anything.
I am stupid, for even worrying about poor old Christchurch.
I don't buy that either, they are in God's hands now. The temple has been taken over.
The irony is that the first thesis was a joke, the second one is not and ironically the dumbing down of the electorate, the investor, the welfare state and the education system, proves my point.
Some people will buy anything, if irrational people lie to them and cost them heaps.
And the Government cost you all heaps, for little reward.
Some people will believe debt is better than nothing.
Some people will even believe my God is better than your God, but who is to say...Which.
(Not I, I have not killed anyone yet, to prove a point).
Some people will believe a Treasury Official, An utterly Foreign Banking system Fractiionally OBR'd, A Government spiel, A real Estate Agent and a Lawyer and a Car Dealer, that they know best.
Come on cough up, it ain't your money....ahem.
It is someone elses.
Buy houses. Insure em, just like you did in Christchurch, suckers.
Only 5%, nay 10, nay 20% deposit, rest over your lifetime. Inflation will take care of the balance.
Oh ...and Harvey, has your best interests at heart, no payments for 5 years to make it all spiffingly up.
Just like they always did...
Make it up, I mean, tacked interest onto the top and over the top, but not in your favour, to favour themselevs.
Plus GST naturally, plus rates, plus Council Fees, all to the Gubbermints...good.
Remember, These people only lie to you for your own damnable good.
The devil you say.
[opps, this is in reply to profile, upthread]
Isn't it great when you get a phrase you can cut off half-way through a sentance to seem to add strength to your beliefs. A bit of basically googling shows the orginal Richard Betts statement as:
"While really bad things may happen at 2 degrees, they may very well not happen either - especially in the short term (there may be a committment to longer-term consequences such as ongoing sea level rise that future generations have to deal with, but imminent catastrophe affecting the current generation is far less certain than people make out. We just don't know."
But, since you place such faith in Richard Betts in a discussion about the degree of alarmism used in communicating climatechange in the media, how about instead posting his more recent list of top climate change articles, where he is actually writing on climate change, rather than media communication:
https://www.chinadialogue.net/books/5918-My-top-climate-science-reads/en
"Essentially, the warming that we've seen in my lifetime was predicted fairly accurately in advance."
"Nevertheless, we can be confident that the 2000s were on average warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than then 1980s, which were warmer than the 1970s."
I agree with his last statement, afterall we are in an inter glacial. Just not seeing the runaway global warming and the need to leave 3/4 of the world's oil reserves in the ground as PE says.
As for his first statement about accurate predictions - no way.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/13/uncertainty-in-sst-measurements-and-d…
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/aahawkins.jpg
The models agree very well with the actual data recorded.
Enough has been said about Curry and her work I dont think I need to add much more beyond she's pretty much the best shot the denialists have and she's one V 10s of thousands all with far more standing.
regards
...has been said about her. Yeah she has a post about cyber-bullying.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/16/microagressions-on-social-media/
Where has this myth come from? The models are mostly very accurate. Here is a graph showing you how accurate the predictions are it also has predictions of your denier friends also.
http://i.imgur.com/B2CIF24.gif
If you stop just reading client change denying blogs you might just get it.
Yeah like skepicalscience is a reputable source. Astoturfing book reviews and post editing comments to win debates. Say no more. Ed hawkins chart would be a start. He is a climate scientist not a cartoonist so I will take his word on climate model prediction accuracy over non climate scientist Cook's activist website.
Profile just cherry picks for his arguments, its known as trolling.
I assume by 3/4 that means "1/2" is conventional crude and "1/2" (more or less) as heavy / oil sands. So we have used up the cheap 1/4 of crude. I think we'll find that the "free market" that profile / philbest thinks solves things will conclude that most of the heavy oil / tar sands wont be "economic" to extract and some of the last 1/4 of conventional crude will also be too expensive to drill for. eg I think the horizon oil well was something like $156US a barrel to extract, I dont think we'll extract much at that cost, we cant afford to pay it in dollar terms let alone environmental.
regards
I post data you post unsupported predictions. How's that free market working out for shale gas in the US? Notice the unfree market in the UK and China has been very slow to take advantage of their frackable resources. Here's a prediction for you - what will happen to the oil price if the US oil export restrictions are lifted (unlike gas) and US fracking techniques are replicted across the globe?
Probably not a lot as the marginal price of oil cannot fall very much without making some of the unconventional plays unprofitable. This would let to shut down of production.
Also you should consider that some of the producers of conventional oil (like Saudi) are now dependent on higher prices in order to meet their budgets.
Either way I highly doubt oil will be dropping very much in the long-term before shooting back up (that is of course assuming economies don't tank big time - a real possibility I acknowledge).
data or models, from data we see rises and back dating the models, well climate models predict the rises well.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
US fracking has maybe 2 or 3 years by one of the data sources you love to predict before it peaks is 2016.
Consider this, the US now has to import less foreign crude as its meeting more of its own consumption, in effect its "exporting it" already as what it doest buy is bought by others.
Oil price is governed by demand which out strips supply all else being equal. So if the US starts to export the US price and Bent crude price will even out at best.
There are numerious problems with fracking across the globe, the failed economics of it being one.
You mix oil fracking and gas fracking as if they are one and the same, they are not.
regards
This is a great link posted on Macrobusiness yesterday. It's a good read for "dummies" who want a little background on cost of oil production for the various types, general history of US oil consumption and some interesting future consumption scenarios.
Some of the graphs are interesting, the rising costs of non-conventional for instance.
What strikes me however is a) it buys the USA maybe 3 years before its expected to drop off, yet there seem to be many predictions and comments of "all is well, carry on" rather than we have breather to fix some things. b) Despite the "surge" in the USA not buying foreign oil its still up at $100 ish.
So by 2016~7 when the tight has peaked, and is declining just how well will we then do...
regards
Spread seems to show signs of narrowing,
http://peakoil.com/business/opec-view-of-supply-glut-hits-brent-wti-pri…
Yet traders are betting on higher demand.
"Oil Futures Rise as Traders Bet on Higher Demand Many Reluctant to Bet on Price Declines Going Into Long Weekend"
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023034650045793259223…
Hardly signs of a glut and from that an assumption, big price drops.
regards
Show me the model that predicted the last 17 years of flat temperatures... Even the IPCC's Pachauri and Hansen admit 17 years of flat temperatures. How do you explain the Ed Hawkins chart above?
Why on earth do you quote skepticalscience!? They have been busted for astroturfing on Amazon to boost Manns' book reviews and post editing comments to "win" debates on their sites. How petty, how sad. Why would you push such a site?
If you want to cherry pick, little troll OK.
Otherwise here is the actual rises from competant scientists,
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
I "push" such a site because it shows the truth...
Latest publication on the actual rise.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.2297/abstract
"Temperature trends are compared for the hybrid global temperature reconstruction and the raw HadCRUT4 data. The widely quoted trend since 1997 in the hybrid global reconstruction is two and a half times greater than the corresponding trend in the coverage-biased HadCRUT4 data. Coverage bias causes a cool bias in recent temperatures relative to the late 1990s which increases from around 1998 to the present. Trends starting in 1997 or 1998 are particularly biased with respect to the global trend. The issue is exacerbated by the strong El Niño event of 1997-1998, which also tends to suppress trends starting during those years."
Its all there...but then you dont want to look do you.
Unlike just about anything you can "push"
Even Curry's site is an opinion site and when she does put up methods they get heavily critised as not robust.
regards
For the record Steven I was referring to skeptical sciences websites actions as petty and sad - not your good self. I am not trolling I have a different opinion to you which I always try to back up from reputable sources. As for Cowtan I already commented on that twice - the author cautions it is only a single paper and others are less than impressed. The fact remains even the head of the ipcc and the met services admit not much temperaturewise in the past 17 years.
So if I go an play a game of poker then I am an optimist, or I wouldn't be playing. But the only way I can win the game is if all the other players lose.
That is the problem with your world view, it isn't. It is a very self serving, self centred, anti social and illogical view.
I don't think you are an optimist. I will explain by way of analogy. If you were diagnosed by a doctor as having cancer you may very well go to another docotor for a second opinion. That second opinion said yes you have cancer and the best treatment is chemo and radation therapy. Now you think, hmmm that dosn't sound good and you go on the internet and find a faith healer who seems a positive type. You go to him and he says ha, those doctors don't know what you are talking about you don't have cancer just a block in your aura (or whatever).
Now if you choose to listen to this one guy who says you don't have cancer are you an optimist or a fool?
An optimist would more likely go, shit cancer you say. What are my chances of beating this thing with chemo and radio therapy and the doctor says well to be honest only 50%. Ok well I'm going to fight this thing and do every thing I can to survive. An optimist certainly won't pretend he dosn't have cancer.
You my friend are the patient in this analogy and you are seeking out the faith healer because you are an "optomist" but as my example shows there is a diffence between being an optimist and a fool. An optimist accepts the facts but doesn't give up hope, a fool just says "I don't have cancer" or It's only 95% certain I have cancer so there is still some dobut I will wait until there is no doubt I have cancer.
Now if your stupidity only affected only you that would be fine, it would be sad but it wouldn't really affect other people. However with global climate change your decision to ignore the doctors (climate scientists) and worse argue publicly against getting treatment (as faith healers often do) you are getting in the way of other people fixing the problem. You are confusing the general population who possibly like yourself have no background in science or statistics but just use your "common sense".
I have nothing against you personally and accept that you have been hoodwinked by the climate denial movement and genuienly believe the rubbish you post. I just ask that you take a minute and ask yourself honestly what is my motive of writing this climate change denial stuff?
That is a relevant analogy? There are standard tests for cancer, you either have it or you don’t. There isn’t a standard test for the runaway global warming hypothesis – it’s just a theory. Would I believe the doctor if he didn’t have any evidence or standard test results – ah no.
Is Judy Curry the Georgia Tech Chair of Earth and Atmospheric Science the witch doctor in your analogy? Or is it IPCC Chair Pachauri? He did say deniers should rub their faces in asbestos dust every day - and went on about voodoo scientists when it was pointed out to him that it was a bit far-fetched that the Himalayan glaciers would be melted to a fifth of their current size by 2035. If even he can see flat temps in the past 17 years why can’t you?
A better analogy might be Lysenkoism, eugenics, population bomb, Y2K, stomach ulcers being stress related, plate tectonic theory etc. etc. History’s dustbin is full of consensus theory and scare stories that didn’t pan out. To date this scare story isn’t panning out either.
If anybody is the witch doctor in this analogy it is interest.co.nz gloomsters. “leave ¾ of the oil in the ground” or bad things will happen in the future – they are not happening now (but are making our crops crow faster) but they will happen after I’m dead. Don’t worry about clean water or cancer research - leave the oil in the ground ‘cause I have this theory that things are catastrophically warming up even though they haven’t done anything unusual in the past 17 odd years.
My stupidity. Yep, I’m so stupid I prefer to fix problems that affect people today not some theory 100 years from now so I can get on a $1 billion/day gravy train.
and models v hindsight,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-m…
and updates,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model…
and dont cherry pick,
http://uanews.org/story/ua-climate-scientists-put-predictions-test
regards
Here's something cherry picked from those arch warmers at Nature. Amusing to see the new theories out there. Maybe the missing heat never showed up in the first place.
"For several years, scientists wrote off the stall as noise in the climate system: the natural variations in the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere that drive warm or cool spells around the globe. But the pause has persisted, sparking a minor crisis of confidence in the field. Although there have been jumps and dips, average atmospheric temperatures have risen little since 1998, in seeming defiance of projections of climate models and the ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases."
You really are grasping at straws now - something written in Nature last week is obsolete... yeah right.
Not measureed well enough. You did read the UK Met/UEA 0.04 degrees/decade bit? Are they not "measuring" well enough? Or is the data not matching your world view and is hence ignored.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500.gif It's interesting to note that if you start the "pause" from either 97 or 99 you don't get the pause in the model. What's that oh you picked an outlier as a starting point. Now either you are not that bright or are being intellectually dishonest in the hope of catching simple minded folk out with the "pause".
Based on your comment history I'm going to give you the benefit off the doubt and go with not that bright as the alternative puts you in the same category as ozone depletion denialists smoking causes cancer denialists , secondhand smoking causes cancer denialists. Interestingly those people are now denying global warming.... Makes you think
Since before climate change was a major issue, climate has been measured in minimum blocks of 30 years, basically to even out effects like El Niño and La Niña variation). Since it was a defintion in use before global warming was a concern, I would say people need to justify changing to using another scale of time. Results from shorter periods can be interesting (suggesting recent trends) or newsworthy (as what people have experienced). But when talking about what the climate is actually doing, I support the conservative postion of not changing defintitions to suit the arguement.
That is not correct about 30 year timescales - NOAA stated in 2008 that 15 years of no warming trend would falsify the models. Hansen even used the 15 year time period in the climategate emails. I’m not the one trying to move the goal posts here. Al Gores 10 years to save the planet is about up too.
As best I can find from a quick google, the NOAA official said he personally would be worried about the model accuracy with fifteen years, which is not the same as falsify. 15 years being half of thirty is when the period has a majority weight of a stand climate unit. He also seems to have excluded any series starting from 1998 in that statement as it was an usual year.
as fir the Al Gore quote, he is a politician not a scientist, and you seem to be mixing up establishing a trend line with where that trend line will be in a decade.
Hi, do you have a URL?
Googling I cant find any such clear reference of this being said, ie the full context.
Besides which the latest research looking at the models say it needs to be a 30 year span to take out cyclic variations.
Gee whizz busy cherry picking again on Gore's work. 10 years allows for lag. So if we dont do something substantial within a few years then the CO2 released now locks in the warming that we'll see some decades from now. If there is indeed a runaway tipping point then we as a society are finished.
regards
Hey Steven I may have criticised you for getting personal, changing topics etc. But in this climate change argument I think you you are putting a really good case forward. Other knowledgeable commentators like DH are supporting you. It strengthens your argument when you leave out the nasty personal stuff.
Actuall, I don't argee with all that, I think there are a set of radical geoengineering mitigation approaches that a few years ago horrified people with the very idea, but are now looked as being increasingly likely. But then, I think the climate -> weather problems are profoundly minor compared to the ocean acidification and the effect on the marine food chain of increasing atmospheric CO2.
Here is the link you were looking for: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-200…
"The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate."
Couple that statement with Phil Jones:
“Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.”
Not significant, not relevant.
0.2/dec just didn't work out. Oh well, time for new theory. Just rejoice in the fact that things worked out better than expected.
Of course people will be saying NOW that it takes 30 years to falsify but then they would wouldn't they. No one likes to be wrong and given the size of the gravy drain... Give an industry $1 billion a day an they will say just what you want them too.
I didn’t pick an outlier as a starting point. I picked today and worked backwards until the last time there was statistically significant warming… Is that “intellectually dishonest”/”not that bright” or just common sense? Good enough for Pachauri and the UK Met service good enough for me. Just not good enough for the interest.co.nz gloomsters
Is you argument so weak you have to put out straw men stating I believe smoking doesn’t cause cancer?
If skepticalscience is so convinced about their argument why do they feel the need to astroturf and post edit their comments section to “win” debates?
How are you calculating "statistically siginificant warming". I've just checked the global surface temperatures and counting back the trend for the past three years is statistically far more likely to fit the rising line of the past thirty years than it is a flat line of no change, so if you are counting back, shouldn't you have stopped at 2011?
Note: I am not endorsing this as a method, I think it is as flawed to use three years as it is to use 10 or twenty to build a trend line, but I am trying to repeat your calculations.
PeakEverything I am not sure what you mean by 10:01am. Without doubt there is no statistically significant warming. At least I am getting somewhere now that you are arguing the toss as to how long not warming has to be to falsify the models and hence admit not much has been happen of late. They say the first step is to admit you have a problem. Nature is big enough to admit there is a problem with the models why can’t you guys? “Dishonest”, “seeding doubt” let’s just stick to statistically significant and forget the ad homs shall we? It’s just a debate.
DH 11.50am - Sorry it was Phil Jones, not Hansen. I am sure I have posted this before for Steven’s benefit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
At end of the day is not significant so that is the key point. Odd he adds the meaningless “quite close” plea – not very scientific of him.
Notice how it warmed at 0.163/dec 1860-1880 and 0.15/dec 1910-1940 before SUV’s were invented. How odd. Perhaps we are just seeing same old same old, not the sky falling. Perhaps there are some things about the climate system that we don’t yet know. We though we knew everything about something simple like stomach ulcers and we all know how that turned out.
For the 30 year premise there is this from Ben Pile. https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
“…They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.” Note the straw man too – no one doubts that humans have caused changes in the atmosphere.”
Nature the other day: “Simulations conducted in advance of the 2013–14 assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the warming should have continued at an average rate of 0.21 °C per decade from 1998 to 2012. Instead, the observed warming during that period was just 0.04 °C per decade, as measured by the UK Met Office in Exeter and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK.” Thogugh they said that in 1990 not 1998.
Can we at least admit between us that not much has happened lately? I am the first to admit prediction is not easy. Pachauri, UK Met Service, CRU, Nature can man up can the interest gloomsters?
Perhaps when the sun rewakes from its present slumber, which it appears to be doing, warming will take off again. It appears the sun's power has waned, and could herald a northern hemisphere ice age of some description in which case I would suggest that any oil that is available should not be wasted
I don't disagree, trouble is if we are entering a mini ice age stage, people will use that as a reason to deny the affect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere. The sun's activity is not affected, obviously, by what we do, but, if we are to see the things that are going on in the northern hemisphere happening for some time, then at the very, very least, we should not be wasting any precious resource that could help alleviate the effects of it. Sort of a win, win I see. Instead of banging your head against the wall trying to get the deniers to come round to the warming thinking, get them thinking more along the lines of not turning fossil fuels into junk for $2 shops.
For me that is one way to get people to accept that we can't keep using these resources the way we have been
Like the iron agers should have conserved iron and we should have conserved horses in 1900 cause the horse shite was getting too deep in town. Or we could utilise what we have now and move forward as a race and cure that cancer I might get one day rather than spend $1 billoon/day on global warming...
Steven - So you chose to ignore the 2014 Nature article also included? O.04oC per decade. Run for the hills!
"Simulations conducted in advance of the 2013–14 assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the warming should have continued at an average rate of 0.21 °C per decade from 1998 to 2012. Instead, the observed warming during that period was just 0.04 °C per decade, as measured by the UK Met Office in Exeter and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK."
Yet more trolling and purposely mis-representing the data, scientists and information on your part,
As ive said,
a) its a 30 year period to use the models, they track well enough over 30 years, anything else is denailists cherry picking.
b) Looks like rising to me...
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/12/the-global-temper…
"First an important point: the global temperature trend over only 15 years is neither robust nor predictive of longer-term climate trends. I’ve repeated this now for six years in various articles, as this is often misunderstood. The IPCC has again made this clear (Summary for Policy Makers p. 3):
and as the IPCC says,
Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends. "
regards
Did you read the Ed Hawkins chart. What ad homs have you got for him? Climate scientist and all that. Why is 30 years now so important. I gave you the NOAA link and the Santer link. 15 and 17 years. They don't fit your narrative? The warming started again in 1975. By 1990 Hansen was scaring people, IPCC set up. So 15 years warming in 1990 (at the same rate as 1860 to 1880 and 1910-1940 warming) is long enough to create scare stories and a warming industry but 15 years is not long enough when no warming happens... That is rather convenient isn't it. Anyone would think the gobal warming theory wasnt falsifiable.
I would absolutely agree that "not much" has been happening lately, and had the initial propostion been that less atmospheric warming was happen in the first decade of the 2000s than the last decade of the 1900s I would not have disaggreed with anything.
Part of the issue with looking at short time spans is that the year on year variation is so much greater than the year on year long term warming trend- to the extent that any two years of annual measurements 25 years appart have an approximate 5% chance that the year on year variation will swamp the long term trend, that is why we need the long time periods for determining if significant things are happening.
That said with recent readings being less than predicted, going from the current year (using year to November 2013 figures as year to Decmber are not yet out) and working back, and given a choice between "atmospheric temperature has been increasing like it did in the twentieth century" and "atmospheric temperature has changed to be flat" while one can claim it is flat (for a given error range) or claim it is increasing (for a given error range) the angle of recent line is closer to the C20 warming line than a horizontal line (being closer means it is less likely to be the result of chance). My personal opinion about this is that if a trend has been going on for hundreds of years, and one is arguing for the statistically weaker position that it has suddenly changed to flat, one needs to provide a pretty convincing chemical atmospheric mechanism for that change.
No one is debating the direct effect of CO2 as that is well established. It is still going to warm with added CO2. The argument is all about the climate feedbacks. Are the feedbacks going to dampen the effect of CO2 or amplify it? Perhaps soem of the predicted scarey feedbacks are not playing out as expected.
Amplify. Warming oceans release more CO2 until a new equilibrium is reached. Warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour which also acts as a greenhouse gas. This stuff is well understood. Clouds are the big unknown but latest research suggests that they will be more likely to be neutral rather than a negative feedback.
The climate is warming consisent with theory, despite septics cherry-picking the 1997/98 super El Nino as a start-point for flat temperatures. Did you notice that 2013 was the fourth warmest year on record?
Perhaps is is not as well understood as you think. From Trenberth 2009.
From an energy standpoint, there should be an explanation that accounts for where the radiative forcing has gone.
Was it compensated for temporarily by changes in clouds or aerosols, or other changes in atmospheric circulation that allowed more radiation to escape to space?
Was it because a lot of heat went into melting Arctic sea ice or parts of Greenland and Antarctica, and other glaciers?
Was it because the heat was buried in the ocean and sequestered, perhaps well below the surface?
Was it because the La Niña led to a change in tropical ocean currents and rearranged the configuration of ocean heat?
Perhaps all of these things are going on?
But surely we have an adequate system to track whether this is the case or not, don’t we? Well, it seems that the answer is no, we do not. But we should!
Yes a did notice it was the warmest decade on record. Given it only warmed at a rate of 0.04/decade I'm not going to lose any sleep over it or tell other people what to do. 1940 was the warmest decade on record at the time with a 31 year stretch of warming at 0.15/dec and you didn't see people going all chicken little then. Guess people had more on there mind then and SUV's weren't invented so there was no one to blame or pay for it.
One could even call it cherry picking to bring up the hottest year yawn given it warmed by bugger all and temperature have been going up since the little ice age.
Btw I just had my tallest decade on record too. What a coincidence. If I could link this to global warming I could get a slice of the gravy train perhaps?
Technically we still are in an Ice Age. An Ice Age is defined by there being permanent ice on the polar caps.
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