Guest post by WUWT volunteer moderator Andi Cockroft
I was fortunate the other night to attend a presentation by Christopher Monckton as part of his Climate of Freedom Tour of New Zealand.
Organised and arranged by Climate Realist NZ (not to be associated with Climate Reality), the tour starts at the north of the North Island of New Zealand, and works its way inexorable southwards to the tip of the South Island. I owe a personal round of thanks to Neil & Esther Henderson for their unstinting service to the sceptic movement, and for all their energies in arranging this exhaustive tour.
I happen to live near Wellington in the south of the North Island. It was a tad unfortunate then, that the breakfast presentation that should have taken place less than 1Km from where I live was cancelled due to lack of bookings – perhaps the 7am start, the time limit of 1 hour, or the $65 price tag all colluded. So it was that I had to travel some 40Km up the coast to the township of Paraparaumu on the North Island’s Kapiti Coast.
A second venue in nearby Wellington was for Press only, with just a few seats open to the public – sadly I missed out there.
Nonetheless, up in Paraparaumu I had about 20 minutes pre-session chat with His Lordship, whilst he greeted as many attendees as he possibly could – what a wonderfully charming and engaging thing for a speaker to do!
The local Kapakapanui Lions Club seemingly spared no expense, with a piper in full regalia to welcome Monckton into the building, and later a mighty Wurlitzer organ the likes of which I have not seen for probably 40 years or more played most enthusiastically serving as warm-up to the event.
As the lights died down, the Wurlitzer began playing again, and as it arose from the depths beneath the stage, there alongside was Monkton emerging as though from Hades – I wonder if Mann et al would make something of our very own “devil incarnate” ??
Monckton starts with great humour, and explains things in their simplest forms (although later certain complexities leave me struggling with many decades since I studied statistics at University)
Sadly though, this particular presentation was skewed by the needs of local politics.
As I said earlier, this presentation was on an area known as Kapiti, and here, the Kapiti District Council have just created mayhem by declaring some 1800 homes unsustainable due to projected coastal erosion. The nett effect of that has been to likely halve the value of many million-dollar homes at the stroke of a pen.
His Lordship was noticeable furious at Council’s actions, and chose to devote a significant portion of his presentation to debunking the science behind their alleged condemnation of perfectly good housing to the scrap heap.
Council plans to slowly withdraw services such as water, sewage, electricity etc to make these homes virtually uninhabitable. All based on a science that at first sight seems quite shonky.
Sad that the expansion of the discussion of sea-level rise was at the expense of any mention of Solar influence – something of significant interest to me. A small Q&A did address some of that but not much.
In all, just over 1½ hours of thoroughly well thought out, captivating, humorous and thought-provoking presentation, followed by about 20 mins of Q&A made the whole evening very well worthwhile
I would encourage any who can get to hear his lordship to do so – and most engaging, entertaining and informative session
Andi
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Notes on 1800 Homes in Kapiti
The area in question is mostly built on sand dunes accreted over millennia. This area of the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island is well fed with sand from rivers to the North – particularly the Wanganui, Rangitikei and Manawatu.
To the North in an area known as Horowhenua, I have seen fences erected during the earliest European settlement in around 1840, now standing about 140 metres inland from the current foreshore.
Here in Kapiti, at the north, accretion seems unabated, in a couple of places to the South some erosion is evident.
A paper published in the N.Z. Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research entitled “Rates of coastal erosion and accretion in New Zealand” by Jeremy Gibb (Department of Geology, Victoria University of Wellington) provides an excellent introduction to the coastal dynamics of the whole coastline of New Zealand. His results for the north of Paraparaumu show 160 metres accretion since 1877. At Paraparaumu itself, things seem pretty stable with some accretion, whilst to the south – erosion in places, accretion in others.
So why the big difference reported now? And, why such heavy-handed treatment by Kapiti Coast District Council?
It seems highly likely that the 1800 home-owners will band together to create some form of class-action seeking at the very least a Judicial Review of Council’s decisions. Monckton doesn’t stop here in his advice however – he is absolutely convinced that the elected Councillors who have voted in favour of these actions could be held personally to account. This on the basis that making reckless decisions negate any protection that legislation would otherwise afford.
A report prepared by private consultancy Coastal Systems, here, forms the basis of Council’s decision-making process – and makes numerous assumptions such as variations in “storminess”
Nonetheless, the report is not directly about flooding from sea-level rise, rather it is estimating erosion – not necessarily the same things.
Also, things are not quite as they may seem. Coastal Systems claim their paper for Council was peer reviewed, they fail to declare relationships that actually make it “Pal Review”. Gibbs paper was naturally peer-reviewed – and done so before the advent of post-normal science.
I find all this quite amusing if it were not so catastrophic for those affected, since a large slice of the area is in such a strong accretion zone !!
Just one example that I cannot explain:-
Here is a small sample from Coastal System’s report of the Beach at Waikanae – just to the north of Paraparaumu
In the 1978 Paper, Gibb has accretion of 160 metres since 1877, whilst the new paper shows what they forecast in 50 years (yellow) and 100 years (orange)
Why should sustained accretion over millennia suddenly change? I just wonder what Coastal Systems mean by “increases in wave height and storminess”
You can download the full range of shoreline maps/projections from KCDC here
I regret, I downloaded the Gibbs 1978 paper years ago, and cannot readily find it today. If there is enough interest I will look at making it available online.
My wife and I were fortunate to get a ticket to the Wellington presentation. Monckton delighted with his wit and knowledgeful delivery. He spoke speedily and in depth over the whole range of issues with an amazing demonstration of a recall of relevant papers, authors and dates. I have only known the best of my law lecturers handle such detail with that ease. He rebutted the local University scoffers and it was plain throughout by his fluid explanations he understood the mathematical validity of what he was dealing with. If Monckton “was not a climate scientist” he proved to be a brilliant independent reviewer of them. Such minds are scarce and need to be listened to.
My wife purchased a copy of Plimers book to present to the local Anglican Bishop.
Mike McMillan says: (April 18, 12:42 pm)
Perhaps the Kapiti 1800 should declare independence. It worked for us.
So you say. We’re just waiting until you drop your guard. 😉
And litres and metres are spelt that way because the French got to name the basic units of SI (= Système Internationale) measurement. A micrometre (pron “MY crow metre”) is a distance; a micrometer (pron “my CROM itter”) is a measuring instrument. Good grief, you’ll be trying to get us to misspell “sulphur” and “oestrogen” next, or shrink the “billion” by a factor of a thousand … Oh, you already have.
Andi,
With respect to Coastal System’s report of the Beach at Waikanae, you stated“In the 1978 Paper, Gibb has accretion of 160 metres since 1877, whilst the new paper shows what they forecast in 50 years (yellow) and 100 years (orange). Why should sustained accretion over millennia suddenly change?
Do the soil aggregates 5, 10, and 15 blocks inland from the beach properties appear to be of similar type to the beach front aggregates? That is, are they ‘old’ beach front aggregates that have become ‘inland’ acreage, as new material continually aggregates at the growing beach front? These can be examined at any new excavations for utilities or building foundations in that area. The local utilities may also have records from their excavations for new services and repair of old sewer/water utilities.
If the local property owners can establish that this area has been continually adding ‘beach front property’ for millennia, they can demonstrate the positive trend is stable and erosion is unprecedented, thus undercutting the unfounded predictions of the Coastal System land grabbers. With the false hypothesis refuted, the Coastal Systems folks will either have to ‘cease and desist’ or risk exposing their real objective(s).
MtK
By the way, Tez, al-Gore did not win a Nobel prize. He won a “Nobel Peace Prize”, which is not the same thing. The Peace Prize is a purely political thing.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of many, that sounds like he’s “scientific” and stuff…
“By the way, Tez, al-Gore did not win a Nobel prize. He won a “Nobel Peace Prize”, which is not the same thing.”
Except in the sense that it’s exactly the same thing, i.e., he won a Nobel Prize. That was after he was twice elected Vice President but before he sold the cable channel he created for a half a billion dollars.
Hey, he’s an accomplished guy. Fact.
Lewis P Buckingham says: April 18, 2013 at 2:02 pm
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There has been a very similar case here in Oz with an aggrieved developer taking the Macquarie Council to court … the council backed down understandably as their ‘green’ roots had no traction in law.
I was blessed to hear/see Lord Monckton in Oz. Brilliant man. I doubt whether too many alarmists would take him on in a debate. Of course he also has the advantage of speaking the facts/truth! The left greenists despise him.
Lord Monckton is a rare person in many respects. I don’t need to list his qualities. But I was immensely impressed with his fortitude and persistence in the face of vitriolic treatment by the press. It has polarised my opinions about the MSM. The attempts to wholly ignore, deflect suppress, denigrate and deny his tour in New Zealand is appalling and a blot on their integrity and impartiality. It would seem that their tactics are indeed straight out of the marxist playbook.
“An Evening with His Lordship”
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As opposed to what ?
Something less Lordly ?
Define “lord” please, it don’t compute.
Mike Macmillan says:
Why the Brits and (through inheritance) Kiwis have difficulty here I
do not know.
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There’s no difficulty, at all :-): we (Brits, Kiwis, et al) speak English and you
speak American.
As Winston Churchill so succinctly put it:
“England and America are two nations separated by a common language.”
Seriously though, the root word for English is derived from the Latin “scepticus”
… thoughtful, inquiring.
That, in turn, is derived from the Greek “skepticos, ” derivative of skept(os),
(v. adj. of sképtesthai to consider, examine).
Latin used to be the language of scientific enquiry and engagement in England
until almost recent times, never Greek. Also, America was never invaded by archaic
French speakers from Normandy (1066 and all that) where the ‘u’ in ‘favour,
neighbour, labour’ etc originated.
So Webster was able to introduce spelling straight from the original Greek roots
for many words instead of being hamstrung by the joint French and Latin influences.
In fact Webster did American English a big favour ( ) through his
scholarship. You could think along the lines of “Keep Quebec as a neighbor or
you’ll be right back there with ‘u’s where you don’t need them!”
At his Hamilton talk at the University of Waikato (not all Universities turned him away) there were two in the audience determined to give him a bad time. Local members of the green party I believe. What was particularly notable was that their efforts were completely ad hominem. They did not dispute what he said or argue the facts at all. That become very apparent and thus their efforts overall helped Monckton more than they hurt him I’d have to say.
And yes – they attempted to loudly make a big thing out of the “Lord” issue. Now in New Zealand, while we care a great deal about earned titles, titles transmitted by sperm are generally regarded as a bit of a joke (with the possible exception of the monarchy which anachronistically continues to fill a much needed hole in our political system). Most of us came here to get away from the British class system and … we succeeded. So trying to make an issue out of this in New Zealand was pretty darned silly. New Zealanders just don’t care.
On the other hand they did score a minor hit (in my estimation) when they highlighted his links to birthers in the US. It is not that anyone in New Zealand cares where Obama was born. It is just that birthers have the reputation of being complete nutjobs arising from the smelliest part of the sewer of US racial politics. I have to say Christopher, that you were very unwise to let yourself get hooked into that morass.
Wow, a Lord with science credentials, how wonderful. I wish all the british elite invested in a science education and not in business or political science.
I wonder if he can come up with a paradigm to address AIDS?
Check Monkton vs Monkton on youtube to see how consistent this guy is.
Lord Monckton recently produced a legal letter from his lawyers stating that as a viscount he was entitled to call himself Lord.
The debate about whether a viscount and non-sitting member of the House of Lords is allowed to refer to himself as ‘Lord’ is of no relevance to any climate science questions and so I am quite happy to accept the advice of his lawyers. Unlike science I do not have a problem with authority in law if they can also produce evidence and feel no need to bother with scepticism until I have a need.
The added advantage of referring to our friend as ‘Lord Monckton’ is that it REALLY annoys those who try to crowbar the irrelevant matter into any climate debate.
As regards the spelling of the word ‘skeptic’ I have no preference and often switch between the two versions.
Peter S says:
There is no such thing as a “Lord” per se, it is the form of address that is used
for certain classes of title. These titles are ranked, in ascending order of prestige
from the entry level Baron to the top end Earl.
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Correct. It is just that: a form of address, not a rank.
The English peerage hierarchy (other countries have their own hierarchies and
ranks) from bottom to top is:
Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Duke. Above Duke, you are in the Royal ranks of
Prince, Princess, Queen and King.
“My Lord” is the everyday or common form of address for a peer, as “Your Highness”
is for a Prince or Princess and “Your Majesty” for a Queen or King.
Everyone else is a commoner. It is good manners for a commoner to use the
appropriate form of address.
“Why should sustained accretion over millennia suddenly change?”
The key information, which you can find by reading the reports, is:
1) Dr Shand ignores accretion by setting the erosion rate to zero for all accreting sites, which is most of them.
2) He then adds the uncertainty for the long term trend to the erosion rate, which turns all accreting sites into eroding sites.
In essence, this is how you manufacture a hazard.
An accretionary coastline will gain more from a storm than it will loose building ”storm berms” in the process. the littoral zone is continuously reworked with every tide but this is not erosion but part of the accretion process. With plenty of material available from the updrift rivers this accretion will not stop.
“GeorgeSoros says:
April 18, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Check Monkton vs Monkton on youtube to see how consistent this guy is.”
Check out the ramblings of any of the “consensus” and see how consistent THEY are.
Tim, if you come across anyone with such contraditory statements then please draw the readers attention to it as I did in the case of Monckton. The guy is a screwball and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a true skeptic.