Climate Audit

One of the fun parts about finding the Hockey Stick is the many guises in which it appears. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you could easily miss the significance of the information provided for you by people in authority.

Today’s scientific authority is the government of New Zealand.

Now let me make it clear: New Zealand is a beautiful country, and I remember fondly, when I went there on honeymoon, the friendliness of the people as well as the astonishing beauty of the country (and we only visited the North Island – we’re saving the South for next time). But my message to Kiwis is: check the provenance of what your politicians are telling you.

OK – off my soapbox.

Here’s the hockey stick as represented in a glossy flyer entitled "More than global warming"

They’ve even managed to stitch on some scary future warming scenarios on the end.

Of course the flyer itself is replete with warnings about greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere, warming the earth "like a blanket". Except that blankets work primarily by suppressing convection, and greenhouse gases don’t suppress convection.

It’s funny though, that whenever the discussion is turned to greenhouse warming, they only talk about the Mann Hockey Stick, never any of the others. I wonder why….