Nice, Crispin

I hope you will submit this to both Science and Nature because it deserves to sit (on the shelf) alongside the other major papers that have met the same criteria for atmospheric effect, relationship, cause and confidence.

I suggest that you append a discussion about whether and when the sets were ‘colored’ or not otherwise you will have to fend off accusations that there is some element of ‘racist’ science underlying your conclusions. Sorry to mention this but some things have to be stated in black and white.

I apologize in advance to Chileans for recently purchasing a flat screen TV – it has already caused snowfall in the Chilean northern desert. For all I know, the additional cooling might lead to snow ski conditions developing at Lake Tahoe in July. It is amazing how powerful this man-made Climate Regulating Technology (CRT) has proven to be. I mean, who knew?

Watt for watt, solar power is extremely expensive, even more than wind power, and of very low and unreliable yield. And it shares with wind power the great disadvantage that it cannot be used on demand – only when it’s there. For solar power to be viable, we would need new power storage technology and much cheaper solar panels.

That’s not to say that they will never be developed. There is much research going on, funded by governments all over the world. Meanwhile, solar is not an option, and the European and British practice of subsidising the current woefully inefficient technology is madness.

Wave and tidal power are still not cost-effective, with prohibitive technological challenges. Globally, there is research going on for those sources as well, but as yet no real breakthrough.

Solar Power and Tidal Power. Both are reliable, efficient and compared to other sources of power, clean.

The problem is New Zealand’s lack of research and development funding. Any initiatives in these two areas simply can’t be funded by NZ private equity.

New Zealand has the opportunity to become leaders in these two areas, if only we had a government with balls enough to go down that path.

For some reason, the WordPress system failed to notify me of your comment posted 22 December last year, so I was unaware of it until today. I apologise for taking so long to respond.

Thanks fopr your encouragement. Since August 2008, I have lived in the Netherlands, so my blog post was a post from afar, no less heart-felt for that! I do not know of any protest group active in New Zealand, more’s the pity. The failure of imagination of NZ politicians astounds me. Their most frequent responses to issues of this kind appear to be:

to pass legislation aimed not at the real perpetrators but at the innocent (as in this case).
to raise taxes or fees (as in the measures to deal with problem drinking).
both of the above, as in the case of the equally ineffective measures to deal with dangerous dogs.

Words fail me.

JJ